The Price of Redemption
by soggy noodle
Summary: Noble Six doesn't die on Reach. He cannot afford to. For what he's done and what he has not, there is a price to be paid. - Rated M for language, gore, and other adult themes in the future.
1. Chapter 1

**Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

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* * *

A leaping dodge to the right was followed by the hiss of ionized air as Spartan B312, Noble Six, was nearly bisected straight down the middle. Even as he lobbed a Plasma Grenade at the bloodthirsty gold armored Elite Zealot, sticking his left arm, Six was only half paying attention to what was happening. He was feeling so... empty.

The Zealot exploded in a showy flash of light blue energy, his roasted jiblets raining softly upon the dirt of a world condemned. Except for that leg, it kinda made a SPLAT sound when it landed.

Backing up while unslinging his M319 Individual Grenade Launcher before pivoting on his left foot to bring the boomstick to bare on two red clad Elite Captains who were taking cover behind some portion of a mostly collapsed concrete security station, he popped the 40mm projectile in their direction just as one was ducking back down beneath the collapsed wall. As Six moved sidelong and away from the two hiding contacts, all he could see were their faces. Not the blue bloods' mugs, no. The faces of each of his Team members. Losing them, it was just like...

Both of the red armored aliens leaned up, one prepping a plasma grenade while the other attempting to take Six's head off with rather accurate shots from a Carbine. Several of the green projectiles hit their mark as the sole survivor Noble Team strafed, dropping his shield down to 50% and the red helmed warrior aiming to put more down range from over the debris wall the two were hunkered behind before said cover exploded from the detonation of the planted 40mm, Six's finger having just released the trigger as he turned away from the scattered remains. Dying without really getting a chance to personally avenge his lost Team. It really was, just like...

Six was making his way, subconsciously, to the lure of extensive cover - what could be seen as an oasis in this hell of constant engagements of ever more aggressive and numerous Covenant forces - a mostly intact fortified bunker at the end of the shipyard, some forty feet off. He was making good time, even as two more Elites, wearing the cobalt blue of the rookies of their kind, came from behind the wreck of a recently ruined Warthog; blood staining the blue squid head to the left's hooves and the body of a marine, her head totally flattened and unrecognizable. Seeing the dead woman, bloodied beyond belief, he was forced to remember. Remember his first failing.

Bloody hooves suddenly found he had a little blue sprite who wanted to give his ugly face a hug. Bloody hooves must have made his fellow blue armored buddy weep in jealousy, because he took off running. But that's okay; Six was feeling generous and donated another sprite for the cause. It, well 'she' stuck to his back and burned with the fires of friendship. The love between pixies and space squids was consummated in a twin flash of sky blue explosions, sending their miserable souls to the great ikayaki stand in the sky.

He was just about ten feet away from the small three story complex by that point, just a chewed up road before him and some barely standing and fully collapsed structures in his immediate vicinity.

If there was no way off this rock, then he was going to go down fighting. And if he was going to go down fighting, he was going to take as many of those damn aliens with him. The armored heavy door of what he designated as his soon to be tomb was slightly ajar, the side opposite the hinges bearing a smearing of red blood.

 _Red blood runs in rivulets down the doorframe. Why is she smiling?.. Why-_

A cacophony of garbled roars, followed by the thundering CLANK of heavy metal falling, one after the next, each with the force to drive small cracks into the asphalt; Six, obviously, hearing them before he sees them. He breaks to the right, putting a devastated Scorpion tank in his path as the footfalls grow nearer; one slowing to a lumbering advance, the sound of its weighty false limbs scraping against the blacktop while the other lumbers on - either ignorant of its partner slowing or impatient to crush its enemy.

The charging Hunter roars again as it bares down on twisted wreck of the human heavy vehicle. The stupid insect thinks it can hide. It will be flattened. It will be-

BOOM!

The implanted 40mm and the Fragmentation Grenade do their work in tandem after being laid at the nexus of the tracks of the wartorn Scorpion; the first explosion lifting it up slighty even as the second causes it to slide forward slightly.

-smashed, the Hunter is knocked back, stunned and enraged, its auditory senses ringing from being so close to the epicenter of two explosions, deafening it to the warning cries of its bondmate; it hefts its Heavy Shield high to bring it down on the intrusive burning scrap to smash it down and out of the way only to collapse in halves, cut in half as its torso is utterly cored.

As the Hunter saw red and was blindsided by several tons of multimillion dollar military refuse and tried to bat it aside, it opened up its guard on its soft orange midsection; an opening Six capitalized on. With three successive rounds fired from his M392 Designated Marksman Rifle, each impacting the meaty conglomeration of writhing orange worms of its center, splattering their ichor all over the road behind it as well as some of its own armor.

Its bondmate bellowed in a mixture of sorrow and fury, its Fuel Rod Cannon charging an angry green as it marked Noble Six for death. Well, deathier death, because it was going to try to kill Six anyway. Six was already throwing another Frag at the feet of the weaponized worm colony while on the run, cutting a diagonal advance between the Hunter and a dilapidated hangar. The hulking armored hive in turn unleashed a stream of green energized vengeance and the wall just behind Six was blown out and melted, bringing the rest of what used to be a vehicle hangar down and kicking up a cloud of dust.

Oh, and the Frag exploded, but that only made the Hunter more pissed off. Still warbling in its agonized war cry, it charged forward to where it last saw the black armored human, its loping steps thudding as it charged up its Fuel Rod Cannon again, even without a target in sight before lobbing an irradiated missile at where that insect had to be hiding.

Only to come under fire from behind. The Hunter swung around as quickly as it could, lowering its shield across it's vulnerable belly but not without taking one round to the outside of its midsection; it growled in anger and pain as it charged up its Fuel Rod Cannon again, before pouring a beam of green death in the direction it sensed the sound of gunfire originating from. All was silent, save for the scratching of the slowly advancing Hunter's feet on the asphalt. It impatiently moved past its fallen bondmate's corpse, then it sensed sound from off to its left - a single TAP - and the Hunter angled its already charging Cannon in that direction and fired.

And then it was shot twice more in the back, falling 'face' flat, dead.

Six sat up from where he had been laying prone, flush against the first dead Hunter. Stirring up the second's anger with the Frag Grenade and remaining mobile while wearing it down had been his original plan; the hangar collapsing was pure luck and provided a smokescreen to further obfuscate and frustrate his aggressor. The Spartan circled around the big red blob on his motion tracker of the remaining worm factory and its deceased hivemate, he stopped when the fallen was between himself and the still living alien. He fired off a shot from his DMR and then tensed, waiting for the return fire to come; Hunters have a tendency to aim slightly above center mass, and when it fired its Fuel Rod Cannon, he went prone and crawled underneath the radiant lance, right on up to the fallen Hunter's body. The rest was waiting for the lumbering artillery piece to get just close enough. Well, and tossing that pebble.

In any case, with the action dying down again and not commanding his immediate attention, Spartan B312 made his way back toward the building he had first identified as his last stand.

If he could not continue to bring slaughter to the Covenant beyond Reach, then he would make sure as many died with him before the very world itself exhaled its last sigh.

In the building before him, he would construct a monument for the fallen out of the dead of his hated enemies.

Their flesh his bricks; their blood his mortar.

He would honor those he was too weak to protect in the distant past and not fast enough to protect in the recent present.

He-

WAS then smashed straight through the doorway from behind, his instincts kicking in only in time enough for himself not to be impaled on the white blue blade of an Energy Sword, it instead sinking into the floor beside him, but coming close enough to cut his shields down to nothing.

Blood pounded in Six's ears as a Gold armored Zealot held him down, a grip on Six's throat as he pulled the sword out of the pierced floor, ready to not miss a second time as he pulled his arm back so the blade tips could begin to radiate their heat against the Spartan's chestplate.

But that gave Six just enough space for leverage as he drew his legs up, bending at the hips lashing out, mule kicking the Sanghelli off him and into just the side of the bloodied metal doorframe. Six forced himself NOT to look at the door before quickly rolling to the left, his right hand reaching across from him where his DMR lay.

The Elite recovered from his winding and roared in an alien tongue, charging the fallen human with the Energy blade crackling against the dust strewn air. The first shot caught the Elite in the left knee and as he caught his stumble - to resume his charge - the human was now in a crouch and firing another shot at the same leg except lower, causing his leg to sweep back from the force. The third and fourth shot followed the second's trajectory, knocking the Elite's leg out from under him and causing him to fall in an almost push-up position. The Elite lifted his head as he began to push himself to his feet, looking up at the contemptuous heretical heathen that dare humiliate him so, only to see nothing before-

Six landed on the gold Sanghelli, bringing down the butt of his DMR on the back of the Elite's head with a wet CRACK. One less Zealot.

His shields had just begun recharging as the Spartan was in the process of shouldering his DMR with one hand while reaching down to scoop up the Energy Sword with the other when he saw a blur of brown out of the corner of his eye. His hand darted quickly, grabbing the hilt of the blade and tried to activate it just in time to bring it up between him and a Brown armored elite. The sound of Energy Swords crossing reverberated in the otherwise empty room, the impact pushing Six back slightly but he kept from stumbling. Looking past the locked blades...

He saw... HIM. That BASTARD. The one who killed Kat!

Six saw red. Literally and figuratively. Figuratively? Because he was consumed with rage and the oppurtunity for vengence.

Literally? Because the sword sizzling and crackling against his was, well, red. A vibrant, pulsating red energy that was nearly white at the blade tips while motes of flowing and dispersing black emanated near the hilt, which in itself was black with dark grey on its handle - _but what does that matter?!_

 _The BASTARD! He's here!_

Six grit his teeth as his adrenaline kicked into overdrive, his MJOLNIR Powered Armor sympathizing and augmenting his rage fuelled chemical cocktail infused muscles into breaking the sword lock and nearly cleaving the damn Field Marshal Elite in half.

The brown Bastard stepped. STEPPED. To the right, parrying his blow past him before laughing, LAUGHING, and bringing up one of his funky alien knees into Six's gut, driving him back several steps and causing his shields to flare warningly, before the monster lunged forward, aiming to cleave Six's sword arm off at the shoulder.

The response was simple; Six lunged forward as well, even though his footing wasn't as sure, and they once more locked blades. This time, the Spartan had a surprise. Six brought his free hand up in a fist to strike at the Elite's ugly face. It was, predictably, intercepted with his forearm and gauntlet. However, if one could look past the visor of Noble Six at that moment, they would see a grin with too many teeth.

Six disengaged the blade lock, leaping back as the Elite was now becoming acquainted with Six's present; a palmed Plasma Grenade to the Elite's arm. The alien bastard roared in his bastardly alien tongue, like a bastard. And then did something Six didn't expect. Six blinked as the brown armored Sanghelli took his sword and cleaved his own arm off, it dropped to the floor, or would have, but the Elite pulled another 'what the fuck' by kicking his arm at Six.

Six dove back into the corridor to escape the explosion - which he did - only to be tackled by 400 pounds of pissed off Field Marshal, red Energy Sword raised high for slicing or stabbing, slamming the Spartan back first into the armored doors of an elevator shaft. The Elite snarled, swiping at Six's head, which Six only barely ducked; though, it did carve straight through his shield bubble, as well as the doors behind him, leaving him with only 5% energy remaining. The brown armored Sanghelli shoulder checked him into the now compromised door of the elevator and it gave, as did Six's shield.

As the Elite and Six fell down the shaft, Six engaged his Armor Lock, the whisps of blue energy swirling around him as he plummeted. The Elite had a different plan, digging his sword into the side of the elevator shaft, while trying to to slow down his descent by grinding his boot clad hooves into the wall. The Sanghelli had more success carving up alot of the supports for the reinforcement beams on the inside of the shaft on the way down than he did actually slowing himself.

Needless to say, one tactic worked better than the other. They landed at roughly the same time. The Elite, surprisingly, landed in a crouch that wasn't accompanied by the sound of shattering limbs, only the thud of boots on concrete and the whining cry of an overshield stressed to its limits.

Then Six landed in Armor Lock mode, completely unharmed. The Elite began rising to his feet, having lost an arm but none of his bluster, roaring at the Spartan only to be cut off by the Spartan RELEASING the Armor Lock, which blasted a sizable EMP shockwave off his armored form, into the Elite and up the already stressed elevator shaft.

The effect on the brown BASTARD was immediate. He was blasted through the reinforced doors of the shaft's lowest floor, into and through a room of some sort whose biggest draw was some horizontally large window, and having his back pressed into it.

The effect on the elevator shaft was just a bit after the alien squid head was making snow angels on the vertical screen of shaped silica. With but a gasp, the shaft collapsed in on itself, with Six just ahead of the raining mountain of debris. Six, however, was not running because of the issue above and behind.

No, Six was running at the BASTARD dead ahead. Six cleared the small room without taking in any of the details, shoulder ramming the still recovering brown Elite through the wide spanning glass, sending him down one last floor into some... lab or something. Six wasn't paying attention to that at this point. He idly noticed his DMR which was pushed free of the lift shaft due to expulsion of air pressure. No, there was only one thing on his mind.

With roar of his own, Six leaped through the broken window and aimed his fall like some human shaped missle, feet first, for the Elite's back. The Elite heard Noble Six's battlecry and performed a combination of rolling and jumping that only a Sanghelli could do what with their alien bastard legs. The Spartan tucked slightly instead of landing full on his booted feet, as he could already see the Elite - who had somehow maintained a grip on his sword's hilt - move out of the way. As Six landed in a roll, he looked back over his right shoulder as he reached up with his right hand to his grasp his Combat Knife mounted on his LEFT shoulder.

The Elite had taken the hilt of his Energy Sword and replaced it on some... some sort of ornate piece of armor Six hadn't bothered to pay attention to before on his thigh. There was a brief flicker and the Elite's shield rippled. Six wasn't going to sit around and see what the split chin was doing; he grasped his now drawn knife and once again, charged the brown BASTARD. The Sanghelli's eyes both widened and narrowed, the pupils becoming thin slits in his golden yellow eyes; he grasped at the hilt of the Energy Sword and detached it from it's thigh mooring and activated its bloody red blade.

Seeing he was potentially running to his death, Noble Six spun the knife in hand so it's blade was in his grip, then threw it at the Elite. The squid head did manage to dodge the impromptu projectile, but he did not dodge the bigger impromptu projectile. Too quick for the alien warrior to raise his sword, Six was in his face, fist having been already cocked back before surging forward with the might of a runaway freight train. The Elite tried to roll with the blow and was rewarded by his head not being blasted off his neck and painted on the walls behind him like the rebirth of Van Gogh as a woman having an explosive blue period. No, instead he was rocked off his feet slightly and staggered back. The right side of his face - the mandibles - crunched in and almost down his throat like a gnarled old man's fingers with arthritis.

The alien bastard half grunted, half coughed as he tried stabilize his stance, to bring the Sword to bear in the blinding pain of both a cauterized missing appendage and a busted squid mouth, but Six had him right where he wanted him. The Spartan locked his left arm around the Elites remaining arm so that it was between his bicep and his body - the Sword held uselessly behind Six. Noble Six then snaked his forearm around the inside of the Elite's arm and clamped his gauntleted hand around the Elite's bicep.

And then he engaged Armor Lock again.

The armor, going into a pre-programmed protective stance, wrenched and twisted the now howling Sanghelli's arm like a macabre pretzel with blueberry filling, in order to assume the Lock position of the Spartan's fist touching the floor. The limb was barely hanging on by this point.

And then Six _DIS_ engaged Armor Lock.

While still holding the Elite's ruined limb, the EMP surge issued forth once more, catapulting the now armless brown bastard into the wall around ten feet behind him. As the Elite was was crumpling into the white tiled wall behind him, Six turned around, found the Elite's custom energy sword hilt, turned BACK around to face the brown BASTARD, flicked the sword back on and _LUNGED_ at him.

The sound of searing flesh and grunt of pain were the last two sounds the unfortunate Sanghelli heard as he was ended by his own blade.

Noble Six was breathing heavily for a moment or two before settling back into his usual, efficient calm. His rage buried back down deep, deep within where its only company was that which birthed and nurtured it.

The Spartan, now thinking clearly again began to take a look around just where he had ended up. It was, as he had briefly mused earlier, some sort of lab. It's purpose wasn't entirely clear yet. The room he was in was oblong in shape and when he momentarily observed it from the other side of the now shattered window, it somewhat resembled the capital letter D, except with the flat side being near the proper entrance to the room - just below the upper observation area - and the curved portion beyond it.

In the center of the room were three concentric circular platforms, each on top of the other, each raised slightly higher than the last and also each slightly smaller in diameter. They formed stairs leading up to a dais. The bottom most of the steps had numerous cables running out of them, along the floor and into a bank of terminals that were facing the entrance to the room. In the center of the dais was some sort of pod.

Back along the curved wall were nine more pods housed in recesses in the walls there, as well as one recess that was empty. Both the pods and the far wall did not look like they bore either human nor Covenant construction. They were as angular as they were smooth and the one on the raised dais had holographic glyphs floating along its surface at the very bottom - in a ring - and at the very top - also in a ring.

Before Six could make his inspection of the monitors, he heard a clatter from behind him, where the Field Marshal's corpse was. He flicked the red Energy Sword on and turned around. It was a false alarm; the corpse was right where it'd been left. Six was about to tear his eyes away before they alighted on the strange and ornate device, once on the Elite's outer right thigh, now on the floor before the body. Six made his way over to the device and bent into a crouch looking more closely at it, picking it up as he did so. When he did, he could feel a slight magnetic attraction to it and the gauntlet of the hand he was holding it in. Raising a brow he lowered the strange piece down to his own right thigh and let go.

It clamped and locked in place onto his MJOLNIR's right thigh piece. He was about to attempt to remove it when a bit of scrawling code warbled onto his HUD, followed by it clearing and a notification that an unkown component had tapped into the MJOLNIR's power grid.

This made Noble Six want to remove it even more before he remembered what that brown bas- that _Elite_ was trying to do with it. Having put down the sword hilt of the red Energy Sword, he then picked it up and after a moment of internal debate, placed it onto the device. The sword, which was at 60% power, began rapidly recharging; at the same time, his shield drained rapidly at the same rate to 80%. Once the sword was fully replenished, his own shield system recharged right back up to full.

Raising a brow, again, he decided he would be keeping this. Well, for however long it mattered seeing as Reach was being glassed. He then went back to looking back about the room.

The Spartan idly mused that even though he had Armor Locked on this floor twice, all of the electronics seemed to be functioning normally.

He made his way around the bank of terminals the dais seemed to be linked with and noted he may have been a bit hasty in thinking the Armor Lock hadn't had any affect; the computers were running in a sort of safemode that bypassed a need for a login and such. From what he can bring up on the monitors, the strange Pods, according to the research notes compiled on their study, seem to be some sort of escape or storage pods designed by a race that may have some connection to the Covenant - though it was only speculation. The researchers had also apparently gleaned the Pods operated by the use of a micro Slipspace Generator, as they were each emitting small scale Slipspace fields though not keyed up for use - the central Pod being the exception and generating the most by far. Perhaps ready for use?

In any case, that these constructs were generating Slipspace fields and had the potential to jump explained away why the human tech down here was EMP shielded; jumps released a backlash of EMP in their wake, so it was forward thinking. That the terminals had ended up in safemode, the Spartan could only guess at. In the end, the 'why' wasn't important.

Spartan B312 walked over to the dais and began to ascend the stairs before a wave of light headedness began to wash over him. Deciding against it for now, he turned back and looked over the information on the terminal bank again.

Now, the Spartan was no expert on Slipspace theory, but he attended the mandatory physics classes just like all the other Spartan IIIs back in his academy days; in other words, he knew the basics; objects in Slipspace cannot interact with anything in normal space. Thus the ceiling and nearly 50 feet of rock above might as well not even be there, which in Six's mind, meant these Pods were possibly his ticket off the planet.

His eyes widened slightly; _a way off means a way to keep fighting. Of making up for his failings._

His decision was made.

Before that though, he headed out the lab's door, up the stairs to the observation deck he smashed the now deceased elite through and in front of the elevator shaft they'd crashed down.

He looked along the small amount of debris scattered about the floor before finding what he sought; his DMR. Swapping out a new fresh clip, Noble Six left the observation deck and headed back down into the lab, retrieving his Combat Knife from where it imbedded into the wall near the former Field Marshal before heading over and stopping just before the steps onto the raised dais and the Pod upon it. Affixing the DMR to his back next to his M319 IGL, he took one brief moment to consider what he was about to do.

He had little idea how this was going to play out; the science team researching the Pods had stopped just short of the phase of actually testing them out with live subjects. Sure, they were large enough to hold something slightly larger than a human of above average height, but there was no guarantee that it was meant to hold organic matter. When he had gotten close to it earlier, it had made him dizzy which was likely the fault of the Slipspace field; he could be sequestered inside that Pod for untold years; what sort of effect would prolonged exposure to that have?

Furthermore, if the Pod itself wasn't designed to actually go anywhere but just store things in a pocket of Slipspace wherever the shell of the Pod was, taking this chance would be pointless as the Pod would be destroyed when the eventual glassing extended to this facility - fifty sim odd feet of rock wouldn't protect against the concentrated streams of high temperature plasma fired from Covie cruisers.

And say it _does_ function as an escape pod and sends him off somewhere, would he even be able to be recovered where he was sent or would he just be adrift for centuries in Slipspace until the Pod's power failed and he could do no more than wait for his death in the void of space due to asphyxiation or hypothermia? All of these thoughts flew by in less time than it would take an average human to blink.

In the end, Six decided, it was the best option for possible survival available; he had no way to safely clear the a way through the debris cluttering the elevator shaft, nor did he have the time to try or even search for another way out - Reach was being glassed; the clock was ticking.

Affirming his decision, the Spartan walked up the dais and ignored the slow onset of light headedness due to his proximity to the Pod.

Six merely raised a brow as the alien metal of the Pod split before him, as if sensing his intent; a portion of it sliding to the left and revealing an entrance for him. Stepping through and noting the dizziness was rapidly receding, he looked around the inside of the Pod for some way to get it to do whatever it was supposed to do. Turning until he faced the hatch he came through, he found a static holographic panel along the inner wall with a specific glyph that... inexplicably felt that it was what he needed to interact with. Placing his left palm onto it, the inside of the Pod came to life - unknowable glyphs began rotating in circular bands that encompassed him completely, as many clockwise as there were counter clockwise.

Each band fluctuating from vibrant greens to blues to purples to reds then yellows and greens again growing brighter and brighter while revolving faster and faster still, until the entirety of the inside of the Pod was a pure yet gentle white. During this, but unseen by Six due to the impromptu lightshow, the hatch that opened initially, noiselessly slid shut making the Pod seem like an impenetrable cylinder once more.

* * *

Just as the Slipspace field began to spin up within the Pod Six activated, the underground facility was breached from above and immolated by an orbiting Covenant Cruiser's ventral plasma cannons. This specific ship had been tasked with this sector of the hated humans' planet, though if everything proceded according to plan, the location where the subterranean facility had lain wouldn't have met with holy light for another half hour yet.

Wouldn't, that is, if the connection to the Covenant battlenet that the Field Marshal was tapped into hadn't been severed in a way that could only happen in the event of his death. The shipmaster of the Cruiser who believed he smote the human scum that slew the Field Marshal wouldn't let the indignity of a lowly vermin killing the Field Marshal go unanswered.

Jets of white hot plasma burning at 3,000 degrees Celsius would have been how Six met his end if he had been just a fraction of a second too late activating the Pod. Activating the Pod any earlier and the The Spartan would have met his end in a similar manner as one he'd considered - except, he wouldn't have outlived the systems failing in the Pod; no, he would have expired while adrift in Slipspace, the oxygen in his MJOLNIR Power Armor not meant to be recycled on the scale of years without outside means of breathable atmosphere.

The Pods themselves, unbeknownst to both the scientists who'd begun to study them and Six alike, were unlike the cryogenic variety the UNSC fielded; they did not place their cargo into stasis but merely transported them away to wherever they were programmed to go; a design flaw for this particular variant.

The ions of the plasma that spelled the lab's doom interacted with the Slipspace field as it folded on the cusp of transport in an unusual and, obviously, unintended way. The stream of white death supercharged and harmonized with the rift the Slipspace Engine used for its jump vector, causing the Pod to fold space in just such a way that it folded right out of the universe.

* * *

 **XX**

 **And, that's the first chapter. In case, you know, you can't read. :P**

 **EDIT: I realize I should have corrected this earlier, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that; at the time of writing this chapter, I hadn't watched a single episode of RWBY, merely pulling knowledge from the Wiki and other fan fictions; now, however, that isn't the case. I am all caught up to the end of Season 4 now.**

 **So, this fic is no longer roughly a blind man stabbing in the dark.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Welp, here's the second chapter.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

One hundred feet up and not even a full second later, the jump completed and the Pod reentered normal space. It then fell, unceremoniously, into and through the limbs of several large trees, which slowed its descent enough that it would prove far less than fatal to its occupant.

The Pod's systems seemed to be irreparably fried, as no inertial dampeners came to life to ease its landing and also why Noble Six found himself ass over teakettle and in the dark. Righting himself and grumbling about shitty alien technology, Six activated his helmet mounted flashlight and took a moment to orient himself to face the door. Or what he thought was the door. Seeing as the holographic panel was, as well as the other internal lighting, absent, he couldn't rightly say.

Six took what little stock of the situation as he could: he was no longer connected to the UNSC Milnet, but that wasn't saying much because when the Covenant had started laying into Reach, it was one of the first things to go. Also, wherever the Pod was now, there was some form of gravity - artificial or not. These two together meant one of four things: the Pod shorted out just after the lightshow ended and the staggering crash was the feeling of debris falling on it and he was now buried in the underground lab.

The second possibility was the Pod had been intercepted by Covenant forces and he was aboard one of their ships.

The third was that the Pod had arrived wherever it was intended to go, perhaps a location under the purview of whatever designed the Pods in the first place.

Or fourth, the Pod had failed to even get him off of Reach.

None of these potentials were exactly nominal but he wouldn't be doing himself any good staring at a curved wall all day.

Bringing up his HUD's Weapon Management Display, he took stock of his arms; 120 7.62mm rounds for his DMR, 15 rounds per mag for a total of 7 spare mags with 15 rounds currently loaded; 21 40mm pipe grenades, 20 on his bandolier and one loaded; 3 Frag and 2 Plasma Grenades stowed beneath his bandolier; one unkown variant Energy Sword at 100% charge.

Dismissing the Display, Noble Six's hand descended to his right thigh finding what he needed.

With a flick of the wrist, the interior of the Pod took on a foreboding red glow as the unique Energy Sword burned itself into existence. Plunging the blade forward and through the unknown metal that the Pod was made of, he then slid it - rotating his wrist as he did so - in circle, cutting a hole into the metal that would be large enough to fit through but elevated enough that he could see through or could duck beneath for cover in case plasma started flying.

His task complete, the molten orange edges of the unknown alloy groaned as Noble Six gave it a push... falling out and away from the Pod revealing the bright light of the sky above Reach. Or somewhere. He ducked down a moment, the motion tracker active in the periphery of his vision still showing no movement for twenty five meters out.

Right, so not buried under thousands of pounds of rock waiting to be sublimated by tongues of starfire. Unless the Covies have forests on their ships - which Six doubted - that left only the third or fourth possibilities; he was either on Reach or somewhere God knows where else.

He couldn't hear any ships overhead and his visor and eyes had rapidly adjusted to the light that had surged into the once pitch black Pod, but now that they had, he found he couldn't see much past the canopy of the trees above, save for a small portion where the Pod made landfall.

Feeling assured he wasn't about to be slagged by concentrated plasma (for the moment) Six rose to his feet, replaced the Energy Sword back onto the holster - again, noting his shields flare as if taking damage before recharging - then placed his hands on the cooling edges of the hole he'd made, gripping and heaving himself out of the Pod.

Landing in a crouch, the The Spartan reached behind himself in rapid motion, unslinging his DMR and bringing it to bare before he began to look around with a more critical eye. The trees of the impromptu clearing, courtesy of the Pod, were not connifers but of the deciduous variety. Reach did have such flora but they were located far south of his last known position. For now, Six would operate under the presumption he had not left atmosphere.

He moved backward until his back was to the pod before accessing a map of Reach in his HUD. He stifled a groan at initially believing he could only be to the South - there were other continents on Reach and such plant life was prevelent there as well. In short? He wasn't sure exactly where he was. The stars would be visible by now, assuming they weren't obstructed by clouds of the atomized soil and water vapor from the ongoing glassing. Trouble was, save for the small section where the Pod made its landing, he couldn't see the sky through the canopy above. So, until he could see more of the sky and thus the stars, he couldn't calculate his coordinates the old fashion way, so he'd just have to pick a direction and move out.

Deciding that because the possibility exists that he is just south of his last known location, he decided north was as good as any - after all, even though he wasn't trapped under terra firma, he was still trapped ON terra firma. He idly thought he could scale one of the trees, before thinking against it; _no need to go making myself easily spotted by a flight of patrolling Banshees or the odd Seraph._

Squashing his internal dialogue, he immediately set out north as indicated by his HUD. The trees were rather large and had grown rather close together in many instances, so he found himself having to go around several of these clusters numerous times within just the first forty five minutes of his march.

In all that time, he still hadn't heard the sounds of planetary bombardment but he rationalized that this portion of the planet had not yet born witness to the Covenant's blighting light.

It was nearly fifteen minutes later when Six slowed his pace slightly; he had contacts on his motion tracker. Alot of contacts. They were all grouped together ahead of him, so he couldn't get an accurate read on number, but what he could divine was that they weren't transmitting friendly IFFs. Flicking off the safety on the DMR, Noble Six advanced, moving stealthily along several wider trees and came upon a clearing.

Out in the field beyond, hemmed in by an uneven ring of cedars and oaks, was a field of short grass and the odd bush here and there. And the source of the returns on his tracker.

There were thirty of them. They were odd looking; quadrupedal with black dense fur; strange shock white bony projections that could be some sort of natural armor erupted in places; exposed skulls with strange red markings that looked almost like some sort of tribal tattooing and glowing red eyes. If he had to equate them to some known animal he would say they reminded him of what a wolf would look like if you were to play around with their DNA a bit.

Six was no biologist nor was he highly knowledgeable of all the fauna of Reach. However, when being posted on a UNSC governed world, or in the civilians' case - migrating, the local populace, both enlisted and not, were made aware of the indigenous predatory species to be aware of. The creatures out in the clearing were definitely not herbivores; you don't need canines that big to munch grass. It was blatantly obvious that they were predators.

Predators that bore such a striking appearance such as these would have been documented and their descriptions disseminated. That only meant one thing; they weren't of Reach, therefore, in Six's mind, they were related to the Covenant.

The reason Six was making his trek north, to where he believed the militarized zone lay, was because he wasn't going to do just roll over and die as they glassed the planet; he was going to go down fighting. He was going to take down as many gas suckers, buzzards and split chins as he could.

He didn't know exactly what these things were and he really didn't care. It wouldn't matter in the end.

They were going to die.

Activating his visor's nightvision, he flicked the safety back on the DMR and stowed it and instead drew his Individual Grenade Launcher. He looked upon the integrated targeting reticule as he aimed the IGL at the the left flank of the gathering of the beasts before tilting its aim up slightly as the reticule went red.

He pulled the trigger and a soft 'THUNK' reverberated. The grenade sailed through the air before impacting a particular ugly one on the leftmost periphery, detonating loudly but providing little flash for the event. The targeted creature exploded in a blooming flower of gore even as the shockwave pulped four of its fellows nearby with two more being claimed by the ensuing shrapnel and debris.

They weren't lazing about now; the five or so just outside of the killzone had been knocked off their feet but were rising back up, growling, and the ones unaffected were beginning to move in among the ones who lost their footing as if the source of the disturbance was where the explosion occurred.

They didn't make it far as the second grenade erupted in a second helping of black meaty bits and blood.

Six had already reloaded immediately after the first grenade had cleared the chamber, grabbing another from his bandolier at his waist. The second projectile was sent down about two feet to the right of the first and this time he kept the trigger on the IGL depressed. He intended to set it off after it stuck but was momentarily - and for a Spartan, that was faster than the blink of an eye - stunned at the stupidity of the skull headed abominations' reaction as instead of moving clear of the first blast, some had stayed put while others moved toward it.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Six waited a second and a half as the wolf like uglies moved closer to his second party favor then released the trigger. It took out ten more of the creatures even as Six had stowed the IGL and swapped out his DMR, strafing farther to the right, toward a grouping of shoulder height bushes as he opened up.

One went down, gored through the torso. Another due to having its head obliterated from an easy headshot.

They now turned to his position, growling louder and advancing on him as he continued to strafe keeping to just behind the trees so they only saw brief muzzle flashes through the bushes he was skirting along.

One more down to a bad case of high velocity disembowelment before the Beowolves were upon the bushes the hated human was hiding among. Three lunged into the dense foliage, expecting to sink their putrid yellow teeth in human flesh.

They, instead, were treated to a fragmentation grenade Six had dropped as he moved clear of the bushes.

WHUMP!

Three more dogs off to heaven. Or hell. Or wherever ugly alien wolves go when they die. Six was now out in the clearing and the abominations lucky enough not to have been first through the bushes were recovering and turning once more to his present location and beginning to charge. Six sent two more 7.62 millimeter rounds down range - taking each beast in the head with ease now that he was firing from a stationary position - before quickly stowing his DMR and pulling his Combat Knife from his left shoulder holster, flipping it into a reverse grip.

The five remaining Beowolves drew in on him recklessly. There was nowehere for him to hide now. The human would be food and what was left behind would rot just like all their kind. He would-

The first to close with the Spartan lunged for his neck only for Six to pivot left, crouching slightly then lashing out with his knife in a lateral sweeping plunge - right into the neck of the four legged freak - that knocked it off target and off to the side even as a second creature came, predictably, lunging at his new position. Six snapped his left hand out in a tight rising uppercut that impacted with a satisfying CRACK and CRUNCH as the beastie's neck was utterly decimated, causing the wolf-thing to be sent flipping end over end and landing in an unmoving heap.

The next two had taken this time to somewhat flank the Spartan and rushed him, keeping to the ground. They weren't exactly coordinated as the one coming from the left was slightly ahead of the rightmost one, but they attacked together nonetheless. The leftern canis attacked low, seeking to maul his left leg while the other sought his knife wielding arm.

Six lashed out with his left leg - even as he weaved to his right, causing him to spin slightly on his right heel - smashing the devil dog's skull against a MJOLNIR assisted, super human punt that sent it cartwheeling - an odd sight for a quadruped, to be sure - all the way into a sturdy oak tree on the far side of the clearing with a meaty SQUELCH as a short, stocky low-hanging branch bloomed through the unfortunate hellspawn's chest. As Six stopped his pivoting on his right foot, he brought his left leg back and down, bracing himself for the charge with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

It was, to the Spartan's surprise, a rather light impact that only brought his shield down by about five percent as the predator attempted, ineffectually, to bring its jaws down on his right forearm. Noble Six responded by scissoring his arms, catching the beast between both wrists - and in so doing - jamming the twenty centimeter blade to the hilt into the side of its neck. Six idly noticed the red glow of its eyes immediately fading. He uncrossed his arms, letting the corpse fall before him, before jumping to his left. His motion tracker having shown the last beast having moved behind him during the previous exchanges.

As the wolf soared pass at what would've been neck height, Six flipped the knife up and caught it between his thumb and forefinger. The last creature turned after landing intending to re-engage - its blood red eyes fully facing him - before the Spartan brought his right forearm down at past the elbow, a light whisting noise before THUNK! his thrown blade sunk into its skull, and the four legged freak died before it hit the ground.

All in all, Six was not impressed. If these were supposed to be some new rank of Covenant then Grunts might actually have some respect coming their way. Some. Like, maybe the width of a fingernail.

As the Spartan made his way over to retrieve his knife, he unslung his IGL and loaded a fresh grenade into it before stowing it once more. If he had known how feeble and downright stupid this particular breed was beforehand, he wouldn't have bothered to waste the grenades. _Oh well, what's done is done. Time to move-_

Just as Six was reaching down to pluck his Combat Knife from the fallen creature, he was forced into a roll as a large threat indicator rapidly closed from behind him. Even still, he wasn't fast enough to get low enough to avoid being clipped. He heard the whirring electrical buzz of his shields flaring angrily even as he saw them get knocked down to 25%.

Coming through his roll into a crouch, he was forced into a rough squat before leaping sidelong to the right as the contact whipped past his position again. Sliding slightly on the grass bloodied by the fell demon dogs, the Spartan spun quickly while unslinging his DMR from his back magnetic holster, his eyes now taking in this new threat.

It was big. Well, it was bigger than the others he put down in the clearing, standing a foot taller than him. It also bore strong resemblance to the other space mutts he put down as its body was rather lupine what with it's enlongated snout, canine riddled jaw, pointed back angular ears, black fur and bulky, muscular body with bony projections - its claws were a tad longer, by several inches, Six noted. Probably what nearly knocked his shields out.

While the others were wont to lope on all fours, this one seemed to favor standing upright. It snarled at him even as it kept its distance now, moving backward into the tree line and the darkness therein. Darkness that all ground bound nocturnal predators slink into to properly ambush their prey, safe from sight.

Well, it would've been safe from sight, had Six not had his nightvision activated in his visor. As the big flea bag began to slink back, Six shouldered the DMR and put lead down the line. His rifle cracked five times and the first shot took the beast high on the left side before it _MOVED,_ causing his other four shots to go wide.

It leapt back and to its left in a respectable display of agility, blackish blood spurting from a nice sized hole in its ruined shoulder as it growled lowly in its canid cadence, its left arm hanging uselessly. Six liked ruining shoulders, he-

Six blinked. The wound mended itself rapidly before his eyes. And that is saying something, because the surgeries those cleared to become Spartan IIIs underwent boosted, among other things, the speed at which the eyes can perceive and the brain can process said visual information greatly.

Six was somewhat caught offgaurd as the space wolf lunged at him at an impressive speed. Its left arm, no longer hidered by a destroyed shoulder, lashing out with a swipe that Noble Six attempted to swat aside with the butt of his rifle.

It worked. Sort of. The claw sweep was parried and knocked to the side, but the viscosity of splashed blood from when he knifed the two prior pups caused the DMR to be dislodged and sent away from the combatants and into the grass off to his right.

As if realising it gained an advantage, the dog of unusual size lunged forward again, its jaws widening as it leaned forward, intending to introduce Six's helmeted face to the back of its throat.

Spartan Six moved his hands, as they were still in the position of having held the DMR only a second and half prior, into the best gaurd he could manage with his left arm and hand going high and his right going slightly lower.

The mutt on two legs' snout and lower jaw met with the man made demihuman's left and right metal clad hands; they were deadlocked; the beast was trying to push itself forward while twisting its neck to bring its fang inundated mouth down on Six's head while Six was holding the maw of the beast open in front of him. The bipedal mongrel's fetid breath washed over the Spartan's visor, fogging it and causing his shields to sizzle slightly as the growling beast's saliva spattered uselessly against it.

Even through Six's air filters, he could somewhat smell what this thing had had for dinner. Keeping his hands securely holding the beast's jaws, Six slid back his left leg slightly, bracing himself, before launching a vicious straight knee kick with his right leg.

Putrid breath it may have, but it also still had quick reflexes. As Six's knee blurred forward, the creature disengaged the impromptu jaw lock by jerking its head back and twisting its neck to the opposite side, raking its teeth against Six's shield and causing it to drop down to 10% even as it leapt back to clear the distance.

Still, it wasn't fast enough. The Spartan's knee collided with the ebony furred beast in its chest rather than its solar plexus, as it had to lean forward slightly to put more strength in its legs to spring back and away. Because of this, a nice CRUNCH could be heard as the thing's chest was nearly caved, sending it skidding back on its clawed hindlegs, nearly losing its footing while causing it to rasp out a yelp in pain.

Still, it wasn't enough. Even as it finally halted its backward slide, the Alpha Beowolf's crumpled and shattered breastbone began regenerating. Anything short of a killing blow or wasn't a dismemberment would heal rapidly. If it was a battle of attrition, it wouldn't matter how strong and fast this wretched human was. It would still-

As soon as his knee connected, Six's right hand was already swiping down along his still raised right thigh, his fist curling around the hilt of his Energy Sword and flicking it on as his arm was held straight at his side. He leaned forward now, his left leg back, his foot dug into the loamy grass, as his bodyweight caused his right leg to come down quickly. As soon as his foot landed, he _exploded_ forward.

The crimson Energy Sword lagging slightly behind him trailed Six with a red afterimage as he launched forward. In one step, he cleared the distance between the two and Six lashed out in a ascending diagonal slash. It was like a vibrant scarlet crescent moon was born and died in an instant.

And it wasn't the only thing that died.

The oversized mongrel didn't even utter a cry as a glowing red line traced from its left hip up to its right shoulder and from that line, above and below, it rapidly burned away from the cut up to the tip of its ears and down to the toe claws of its feet, in tongues of rose colored flame; a flash fire proceded immediately after by the beast's body sublimating and dispersing into whisps of black smoke.

The Spartan did not stand there motionlessly as his foe faded. He did not strike some impressive and superior pose before his bested enemy. He was a soldier and performing his duty; the threat was terminated and thus dismissed from conscious thought. Even before the shadow mongrel lit up in a gout of immolation, Six had already turned aside and was walking over to where his DMR lay and by that time his shield was recharging. He replaced the Energy sword back in its 'sheath', eliciting the minimal drain as power was shunted to the stowed sword, as he considered swapping mags on his recovered rifle. Deciding against it, he then made his way over to the corpse of the...

Six raised a brow. _Where did that dead wolfling go?_

Now that the combat had wound down - though Six was alert to eying his tracker for backstabs this time around - the Spartan finally noticed something he really should have taken note of earlier.

The bodies of all the beasts - they were gone. He looked down slightly at his gauntlets and even the blood transferred from his knife to them from earlier was gone.

Not knowing what to make of it, Six continued to where he remembered laying low the quadruped via knife throw and... - _yup, there it is_ \- glinting in the soft pale moonlight of Reach's smaller moon, Turul. He picked up the blade, seeing if truly all of the blood was gone.

Sure enough, just like his gauntlets and his DMR, not a smudge of blood remained. Why, he could even see Turul's broken-

Six spun around and beheld the night sky. The night sky he didn't realize was now clearly visible in the open clearing due to his use of night vision. The night sky that bore only ONE moon. One BROKEN moon.

 **XX**

 **To be continued... at a later time. I'm pretty whimsical and often procrastinate things. Sometimes updates will come so quickly, merely a day after the previous chapter. Or, like now, where I have an idea where I want things to proceed but have not quite nailed down the particulars yet.**

 **Just a fair warning.**

 **Review if you feel like it.**

 **Or don't.**

 **Either way, thank you for reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

**And another chapter. Who loves you? I do.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

As the solitary shattered heavenly body hung silently above upon a black curtain, amongst a scattering of alien stars, Spartan B312 found the urgency that was driving him before beginning to bleed into a different mindset.

 _So, not Reach then._

The expedience born of essentially racing underneath an ever looming Sword of Damocles now no longer required, Six turned his heading back to the north and set off once more with a bit of a slower stride. His goals shifted survival to the immediate and duty to the secondary. After all, as Six was taught ever since being taken in by his second 'family', a tool is only useful if it is well maintained.

As he put the clearing behind him he made to keep his eyes and ears open for the signs of moving water; remaining hydrated being the utmost imperative. Food, he had covered in the form of several ration bars, stowed inside a small compartment on his left thigh's armor piece; his canteen, however, had bought it after a few Needler rounds caused it to rupture back on Reach.

* * *

Several hours later, the light of the planet's star began filtering through the trees above as Noble Six wove between what must have been the hundredth copse of nearly conjoined trees, he ruminated on how he'd need to be even more conservative of his ammunition as well the structural integrity of his only rifle.

 _Obviously,_ he thought, _if I come across any of those Hellhounds I'll need to divert course; no need to take it upon myself to bring about the culling of a entire local species._ After all, Six noted, they only seemed to grow hostile after he started dropping them left, right and center.

Still, something about them just seemed _off_ and Six just couldn't put his finger on it. His gut instinct of seeking their eradication, he thought at first, had to be with him believing them to be some never-before-seen faction of Covenant; yet, there was a deeper, visceral reaction of just... wrongness to them, a feeling that fanned the flames of violence in him.

Spartan B312 didn't last as long as he had by ignoring his gut.

Six was taken out of his ponderings by a welcome sound - the light gurgling of a stream. Sure enough, as Six altered course, he found the trees thinning and the ground shifting from thick, short grass covered earth to pebble laden clay.

Beyond the trees was an obvious game trail leading up to a small creek that had to be at least a foot and a half in width. The Spartan made a visual sweep of the area before leaving the treeline for the shallow brook.

Eyeing his tracker one last time, Six set down his DMR and fell into a crouch, one knee bent while the shin of his other leg was flat with the ground. He brought his hands to the side of his helmet to disengage the pressurized locks securing it to the underlayer around his neck. With a hiss and a twist, the MJOLNIR Mark V-B helmet was pulled free and set down alongside his rifle.

Spartan B312's slate blue eyes took in the area surrounding the small creek bed before lowering his gloved hands to the stream in front of him, scrubbing them lightly to get off any grime before cupping them to bring some water to his parched lips. It was cold yet crisp; just what the doctor ordered.

After Six repeated the motion several more times, he took more careful note of the direction the creek was running; from northeast to sourthwest. When trying to find civilization - which Six wasn't even sure he would - one would follow the flow downstream. The Spartan decided, with a sigh, to do just that.

As his hands alighted upon the sides of his helmet, he heard a sound that shifted the course of his newly altered plans; gunfire.

Noble Six quickly donned his helmet and retrieved his DMR, then turned in the direction the shots issued from - due east.

The Spartan bounded over the stream, picking up the pace as he moved through the foliage that was becoming ever the more dense. He dodged a young willow tree, ducking underneath a low hanging branch before putting on more speed. Another shot rang out, muffled by the trees and undergrowth before him, but it was definitely closer; likely just outside of tracker range.

Sure enough, even before he could make a visual, his motion tracker painted several red blobs ahead of his position.

Bursting through the treeline, Six came face to backside with several large black haired beasts; even if he wasn't veiwing from the front, he could tell they were not the same as the ones he dealt with the prior night.

There were five in total, with two being much larger than the other three and sporting more bone like patches along their backs to boot. Beyond them was the source of the gunfire - a man dressed in dull browns and a tan wide-brimmed hat. He was holding a rather strange rifle that Six didn't bother scrutinizing further at the moment; his attention now squarely on the creatures between him and the man.

Six shouldered his DMR and double tapped two shots into each of the larger monstrosities' left hindlegs, recalling what happened with the larger Hellhound with its regenerative factor. The rounds tore through the knee joints of both of them causing the one farther away to actually fall forward while the closer one stumbled but found its footing. Their advance to the man slowed and they were all roughly clumped together.

Six acted accordingly.

"Get down!" Six barked.

Both the man in brown and the creatures responded to his command; the former by diving flat, the latter by turning to glare balefully with red eyes upon the newest lamb to the slaughter. Even as Six swapped his DMR for his Independent Grenade Launcher, he noted their short, squat faces topped with bony exposed skulls bore some resemblance to that of a bear's.

As soon as the Spartan's left hand met with the barrel of his weapon, he pulled the trigger and held; the grenade sailing through the air briefly before coming down into roughly the middle of the gathering of demon bears. Before it even hit the ground, Noble Six released the trigger causing the 40mm canister to detonate in midair, the blast catching two of the mini terrors who were nearest the blast and reducing them each to half of their former height and what remained of their corpses to be tossed aside by the shockwave. The third smaller abomination was knocked into the big beastie that was farthest from Six, collapsing on it in a heap.

Spartan B312 stowed his IGL and withdrew his Energy Sword, activating it in one clean motion, before running at the back of the big brute before him. It was starting to turn around, albeit at a slow pace; being so large and having your knee go out from under you would do that to you. Six had closed the distance in a sprint before the black furred beast could complete its turn, giving Six free reign to leap on its back.

Being introduced to one ton of metal clad soldier had predictable results; a resounding CRACK could be heard beneath his feet as the hulking bear's spine was snapped, causing it to once more stumble and pitch forward in a fall. Six was taking no chances with the regeneration factor members of these species displayed; he slammed his sword forward, aiming for the creature's head.

Being introduced to an angry red Energy Sword to the back of one's skull, likewise, yielded predictable results; death. As Six continued his forward pace by leaping from its shoulders and past it, the point of incision in the Ursa Major's cranium glowed red before its whole body immolated from the head down.

Landing on his feet, Six continued to advance on the remaining two hostiles, noting in his periphery that the man was rising to his feet. The second large bear beast had thrown the smaller of its kind off of it and was scrabbling to its feet, turning to face Six as it did so. The smaller one didn't seem to care about its unceremonious deposit to the dirt and had already risen on its hindlegs to meet the black armored human.

The Spartan was on the smaller ursine creature half a second later.

And he didn't slow down.

Ducking past the creature's clumsy swiping forelimbs, Six shoulder rammed the beast off its feet while stabbing forward with the Energy Sword, straight through its chest with the sizzling sound of flash cooked flesh. Six planted his feet in the ground, attempting to halt his forward motion as much as he could while bringing his sword bearing right arm up in an uppercutting motion.

The Ursa Minor was cleaved, breast to skull with a red line marking the blade's passage before the beast's corpse immolated a second later.

The final off colored hell-grizzly had fully turned by this point - rearing up to its full impressive height; it towered over the Spartan by at least three feet.

It roared in challenge-

Only to be shot thrice in the back of the head by the now standing man in brown.

With a THUD, its body hit the dirt of, what the Spartan now realized, was a road. As its body began to sublimate, Noble Six turned to the man and they shared a silent conversation, evaluating each other before the man heaved a sigh of mixed exhaustion and relief as he lowered his rifle. Likewise, Six deactivated his sword, now at 70% charge, but kept the hilt in hand as he made his way over to the man.

Getting a better look at him now, Six would wager the nearly six footer was in his early thirties. Even underneath his hat, the man's green eyes exuded gratitude.

"I don't know where you came from, stranger, but I owe you my life. Thank you." the man stated.

"Think nothing of it." Six rebuffed; really, to him, it was nothing to think twice about - jumping into the heat of battle and putting down fell abominations is what he had been raised and conditioned to do. Except, the variety he's used to contending with were far less hairy and bestial.

The man, who had by this time lowered his left hand away from his strange rifle, offered it in greeting.

"The name's Tucker Castaneus, stranger."

Six placed the Energy Sword back into its 'sheath' with the usual drain effect kicking in as he extended his own hand.

"Spartan B312."

Six's hand easily dwarfed Tucker's in size, even as the poor man had to reach up slightly to make the awkward handshake possible; it was somewhat comical, a rather lanky man who barely reached 5'11" greeting the comparatively massive broad shouldered seven footer, clad head to toe in dark metal.

Dropping the handshake, Tucker briefly looked over the imposing metal armored man - android? - and said the first thing that came to mind.

"So, you from Atlas? Not that I'm complaining, but what are you doing so far south?"

 _Atlas?_ The MJOLNIR armor typically spoke for itself and while it was a big secret that the SPARTAN III's hailed from Onyx, he'd never heard of this 'Atlas' being referenced as a point of possibility.

This caused Six to raise a brow. Did the people of this colony get their wires crossed in regards to the SPARTAN III program?

That allotted for two possibilities; one held some probability while the other was rather incredible.

The first being this colony was an unofficial settlement, perhaps started by less than aboveboard financers. If that were the case, the likelihood of it and its people having ties to the Insurrectionists were high. The Insurrection was a movement of various loosely organized groups of rebels who wished to cede from the control of the UNSC's hold to become independent states. Most of the colonies that had gone the way of insurrection had either been brought to heel many years before by the UNSC or during the war with the Covenant, as humanity began to band together for survival. This world could be one colony that was more successful than most in its bid for independence.

Of course, this was all just one such possibility.

Still, Six needed to remain cautious. If the people didn't recognize a Spartan when they saw one, all the better. He may be a practical one man army, but he only had so much ammunition.

The second possibility was... no, that was just too out there. Six was a multifaceted thinker, not a genius mind you, but one who tried to consider as many possible variables to approaching various scenarios as could be likely. Even still, the latter 'possibility' just seemed too ridiculous to consider.

So, banking on the likelihood of the first, he chose his words more carefully.

"No, I can't say that I am. As for how I how I arrived, my transport crashed; why is it that you think I am from Atlas?"

Tucker blinked. To him it seemed rather self explanatory. The name the metal clad man gave out sounded like some sort of designation an android would have, so he only assumed. So this Spartan Beethreeonetwo was a Huntsmen then? It would make sense - that sword was obviously using Aura. Must be his Semblance.

"Well, your armor; it's pretty um... non typical for a Hunstmen. Has a more military vibe to it, reminiscent of Atlesians."

 _Huntsmen?_

This was getting rather trying; Six was no stranger to infiltration but this was not his modus operandi - when he did so, it was with stealth, and remaining out of sight, not weaving stories and half truths in order to get to his target.

"Hmm, a huntsmen... that's as good a description as any."

Tucker just shrugged internally; not everyone who used Aura was a Huntsmen or Huntress, after all; he, himself was a prime example; just a merchant without the need of having to pay for a bodyguard. If Spartan didn't want to talk about the specifics of his life, he wasn't going to try to force him to.

Six looked to the right, down the road a bit and spotted something he had initially noticed but filed away as not being relevant during a time of combat; a dead horse, disemboweled by four equidistant gouges running from its side down to its belly.

Noticing the direction the steel giant was looking, Tucker joined him in looking at his fallen steed.

"That's the second horse I've lost in three months." Tucker sighed again, "This old road just keeps getting more and more dangerous. Time was, the worst you had to worry about was just some Beowolves, only small packs at that. Easily enough handled with ole Trianja here." With that, Tucker patted his rifle. The weapon looked like a trident combined with a rifle; the hooking, forward facing spear tips extending from above and below the business end of the stock. "Now, Ursas? I hate to admit it, but my wife might be right. It's too dangerous outside the city."

 _Beowolves and Ursas, huh? Well it beats Hellhounds and Black Grizzlies. And Trianja? Is that the name of the rifle variant? I'll have to ask where he gets his ammunition. I'm not dangerously low yet, but it would be good to get ahead of the game._

"And what city would that be?" Six inquired.

Tucker just gave a look that said 'Are you serious?'.

"Vale. Biggest city on the continent." Tucker turned back around so that he was fully facing the Spartan.

"Well, Spartan, I need to be getting back to my village and my family, but I can't just let what you've done go unrewarded; it wouldn't sit right with me. Please, come back with me and let me get a meal in you." Tucker offered.

The Spartan considered it. He didn't necessarily need the food; he had ration bars, however one free meal meant holding off on having to dip into his reserves.

And ration bars tasted like boiled leather dipped in a Grunt's ass.

 _Tough call_.

"As long as there's meat."

* * *

The two had been walking along the road for about twenty minutes when the small village came into sight.

It's concrete walls stood at about fifteen feet, there were steel palisades that appeared to wrap around the walls at ground level with a break where there was a large double set of steel reinforced doors set into the section of wall they were approaching. Above the doors was the missing section of palisades attached at each end with heavy chains.

Six conjectured that it could be dropped in front of the door to shore up the defense of the perimeter in case those black furred animals attacked. Speaking of those creatures, he really needed to inquire about them. But how to do it in a way that wouldn't allude suspicion of being an off worlder? Luckily, this 'Atlas' appeared to be an organization that boasted sophisticated technology, which is likely why he received no questions about his Energy Sword. Or was that really a lucky thing? If they really were Insurrectionists who wouldn't raise a brow at either MJOLNIR Powered Armor or Energy Swords, just what had they already developed?

Six just reaffirmed to himself to remain vague when responding to certain questions with Tucker, or anyone else on this planet until he could be sure of their loyalties. To escape Reach only to die, cut down by his own kind due to a blood feud - that was not a path he intended to find himself at the end of.

Still, looking back at the village growing closer in his field of view, this level of defense wouldn't hold off an organized assault by sentient beings like the Covenant, or other human forces determined enough to get in, Six mused. It was rather reminiscent of a fort from the Dark Ages back in Earth's history.

The trip had been rather quiet. Though, it wasn't exactly an uncomfortable silence.

Well, not for Six anyway - he wasn't usually very talkative when he was being intentionally tight lipped. The whole quandary of the status of the colony having him keep a certain distance from Tucker.

Tucker, however, just didn't know how to broach a conversation; the big guy next to him was pretty intimidating.

He was so large yet moved so silently. It was pretty eerie. How'd he do that? He must've had a lot of training wearing all that gear.

Still, the metal clad man had saved his life. That meant he spared his wife from becoming a frontier widow and his daughter from losing a father. So, quietness and strange names aside, Mr. Beethreeonetwo was a stand up guy.

As the guards on the top of the wall saw Tucker give them a wave, one disappeared from sight - possibly down a set of stairs. A moment later, the doors opened, permitting Six and Tucker entrance into the village.

"Well, welcome to Arca Spina." Tucker gestured tiredly.

The interior of the village was comprised of log cabins that were nearly side by side, half to each side of the main thoroughfare that bisected the settlement. Even still, there was some variation; some were two stories, other were wider - boasting more floor space on a single floor, while others still went back lengthwise from their front doors.

It was a more humble one story to the right of the main - and only - road through Arca Spina that Six was led to.

Opening the door, Tucker was almost knocked off his feet by a three and a half foot pink haired missle impacting his abdomen.

"OOF!"

"Daddy!"

The missile spoke as Tucker reached down to pick it up to reveal the form of a barefoot young girl with a lightly tanned cherubic face, violet eyes, waist length wavy hair done up in twin tails and wearing a white sundress.

"I missed you!" The girl whined.

Six raised a brow at the inordinately bright hair color.

"I missed you too, Dianthus." Tucker replied wholeheartedly, wrapping his little girl up in a hug that got her giggling.

"You're late!" Another voice was heard shouted from beyond the open door. The voice was female and sounded slightly agitated, but not furious.

Stepping through the doorway and turning his head to Six, Tucker gestured with his chin for the Spartan to follow.

Six had to duck under the door frame to do so.

Just beyond the entranceway was a throw rug that led into the interior hallway. Straight down the hall seemed to lead to a kitchen while the room to the right appeared to lead to a family room. Two doors on the on the left were open, Six noted, as he followed Tucker to the source of the voice. Years of training had him briefly scan the rooms with his eyes as he walked past - always be alert for threats.

The first room was clearly the daughter - Dianthus' - room. A small bed, with purple sheets and pillows was against the far wall while a table and a dresser were against the wall nearest the door. The second room was undoubtedly Tucker and his wife's room. A large bed dominated the center of the room with two dressers on opposite sides of the room made up all of what Six took in as he now remained just outside the entrance to the kitchen.

"But I'm here now. That's something, right?" Tucker said in a tone that sounded as if he'd uttered the phrase numerous times before. Six could hear the woman sigh from inside the room. During this exchange, Dianthus - who was now held up so that her chin could rest on Tucker's left shoulder was staring at Six with wide, glistening eyes.

The sound of wood sliding against wood could be heard and Six's tracker indicated movement coming toward Tucker. Just past the man he could see a woman who looked like a an older version of Dianthus standing there with her hands on her hips and her head slightly tilted to the side, a mixture of relief and exasperation upon her countenance. She was the same height as Tucker and her long, straight pink hair flowed freely down her back. Her eyes were also the same violet color as her daughter's. Unlike her daughter, she was fair skinned. She was rather generously built, filling out the sky blue sundress she wore in a rather feminine way.

"Look, you know I was worried about you. We both were." Her eyes trailed to the back of her daughter's head. "Did you really need to-"

It was then that she took notice of the massively metal man standing silently in the hallway beyond the doorway to the kitchen, his head nearly scraping the ceiling.

Her stance shifting with her arms leaving their akimbo pose and crossing in front of her, her left foot beginning to tap on the wooden floor, as she arched a delicate brow - not at all intimidated by the seven foot titanium golem her husband brought home. "And who is this?" She questioned in a slightly annoyed tone, her eyes returning to her husband.

"Yeah daddy, who is this?" Dianthus parroted, in an excited chirp. She had yet to stop staring in wonder at the big, _BIG_ guy.

Tucker just turned slightly to catch Six in the corner of his eye before returning to look at his wife.

"This is Spartan Beethreeonetwo. He's the reason I came home earlier than I likely would have otherwise." Noble Six caught the side of Tucker's mouth moving, mouthing the words 'Or at all' to his wife.

Tucker crossed past his wife into the kitchen and set his daughter down on one of four chairs around a wooden table already laden with three places set out as if in preparation for a meal.

At Tucker's words - both voiced and not - the yet-to-be-named wife's posture shifted again, flowing from minor vexation to minor shock then to sheepish relief. Her attention falling on the armored man with kinder eyes.

"I see." She began softly before smiling slightly. "Well, thank you for that. Really. Oh, where are my manners? I am Zinnia Castaneus." She said with a small bow of the head.

Six, who had been watching the interactions with slight bemusement, finally spoke up.

"Spartan B312." He said with a nod of his own.

"I was hoping we could spare him some of your pot roast, hun." Tucker offered, now seated next to his daughter at the table, putting his back nearest the sink.

"I'm sure we can accommodate." Zinnia said with a wry smile, heading to the oven which was against the wall to the left of the entry way.

Six just shrugged internally and approached the table, then gave pause when he examined the chair he'd be seated in.

"I hope you don't mind if I stand. Taking all this off is rather time consuming and I doubt your chair could hold the weight." Let it not be said that Six was the most knowledgeable when it came to manners. He may not have been raised in a barn but being raised in boot camp does not a gentleman make. Still, even he knew that the alternative was sitting on the floor and that would put him at a disadvantage in case the house was breached by hostiles.

That would be unacceptable.

"Um... sure." Zinnia offered from over her shoulder.. "However you're comfortable."

As she was taking the roast from the oven, Spartan B312's hands raised to his helmet, depressurized it and removed it.

"YOUR HEAD CAME OFF!" Dianthus reported. Loudly. "Hey, how can you see out of there! It's all shiny and stuff!" She gestured to the visor of his helmet, which Six was holding in front of his chest as he had been in the process of setting it on the countertop near the sink.

Six blinked, then lifted the helmet up and over Dianthus before settling it loosely around her head, keeping a grip on the sides so the deceptively heavy weight wouldn't reach her shoulders.

"OOOOOOH! Everything is all... so clear!" She tried to articulate.

"No helmets at the table, young lady." Her mother said as she set the roast down in the middle of the table before taking a seat. At this Dianthus 'Awwwwwd' while Six lifted his helmet from her head, setting it on the countertop like he originally intended.

Tucker set about carving up the roast, carving a large portion for the Spartan before appropriating a smaller for his daughter and an equal size for his wife and himself.

For the first time, Tucker noted, there was a face to go behind the metal clad giant.

For such a large frame, one could be forgiven for thinking the man within the armor was an overmuscled, thick necked brute. One would, however, be wrong.

Six's face was actually a cross between harsh angles and high cheekbones with a lightly squared jaw, lending him a rather handsome visage that spoke of one not yet completely out of their youth. His hair was dark gray, nearly black on the top and was shorn on the sides where it was also lighter in shade - although not referred to as such on Remnant, it would be considered a slightly longer than regulation military crew cut. His eyes were a nearly grey slate blue.

As Six took his plate to the counter near where his helmet sat, he began to dig in to the pot roast.

Yes, much better than ration bars.

"So," Tucker began, "Where do you intend to go from here, Spartan?"

Six paused while chewing, as if giving the question some thought. In reality, after he first heard mention of the location, his mind had already been made up.

"Vale." He set his fork down. "Though, my map software is acting up." He said, as he tapped his helmet. Not a lie; his HUD's computer was set to automatically link up to any local Milnet or initiate a handshake procedure with any civilian AI at but a prompt which would provide him all the geographic information he needed. That he hadn't been able to do that when he initially ended up wherever HERE was indicated a possible malfunction or... there were no satellites in orbit or any civilian AI within range.

"So, you need a map then? I can provide you that." Tucker said easily enough, though, he thought it odd that the large man - was it right to call him a man? He looked only little over half his own age. Bah! Where was he? Right, he thought it odd that Spartan used something other than a Scroll for such needs, being a Huntsman and all but that armor of his looked pretty advanced. So, who knows?

"So, Spartan? Where are you from exactly? I notice the gear you're wearing seems... a bit, hmm... well, are you from Atlas?" Zinnia asked after finishing a sip of water.

"Oooooh! Are you an Iron Man from Atlas? Do you know Grandpa?" Dianthus added in her own queries.

"No, I am from a bit farther out than that." Spartan B312 took another bite. He was no connoisseur, but Six had to say this is probably the best food he's ever had. Then again, he's practically lived off of nutritional supplements, MREs, the slop they served at mess back at boot and ration bars most of his life.

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off. Why didn't he think of that sooner? It was nearly the perfect way to stymie inquiries.

"Any more than that, I cannot say; it's classified." Six smiled smugly, internally, thinking he had come up with the perfect answer to kill interest in things he didn't want to share and also keep people at a distance until he could judge where their loyalties lay.

Zinnia blinked.

"You know, my father would often say that when he didn't want to answer questions my mother asked." She cut another piece of the roast on her plate before stabbing it with a fork. "He was a Colonel in the Atlesian Military. So, are you saying you cannot say if you are from Atlas then?" She persisted, watching Six out of the corner of her eye.

Noble Six was a stone, however.

"That's classified." He said with a wink before finishing off the last of his roast then draining his glass of water halfway. Let them think what they will; if they believe him to be part of 'Atlas', great; then they won't think twice of his armor.

Zinnia just pouted lightly while Tucker just chuckled before polishing off the rest of his roast. Dianthus was watching the conversation develop as if it were own personal sitcom, obviously ecstatic to have someone or thing new to liven up a meal, a bright smile on her face when she wasn't chewing her food.

"Tucker, that rifle, where do you come by the ammunition for it?" The Spartan inquired. It really was a strange looking rifle. Not the strangest weapon he'd ever seen, to be sure - Needlers were quite a head scratcher.

"Hmm? Well, usually I buy some stock when I hit the big city. What I don't use I end up selling on my stops in the others smaller towns." And that got Tucker thinking; thinking about how his latest trip had almost been his last.

"Hun, after we put Di to bed, I think I'll be ready to have that talk about _that_ issue you were rather insistent about." Tucker said with a slight sigh as he gave his wife a serious look.

Zinnia met his eyes and knew there was only one serious topic that they'd been discussing lately; leaving Arca Spina and moving back up to her homeland of Atlas. Tucker had been so stubborn and adamant against it, that the village was safe and the run ins with Grimm minimal and of little threat. That he had made it home only thanks to this kind stranger seems to have jarred some sense into his head.

"I see." She replied. She did not smile smugly. Really. Okay, maybe a little.

"Well," Tucker began as he took his and his daughter's plates to the sink. "Let's go find you that map."

The Spartan gave a silent nod after finishing his water, before grabbing and donning his Helmet. Dianthus 'Awwwwwd' again with an adorable pout of her own. He turned to Zinnia before following Tucker out of the kitchen.

"Thank you for the meal. It was the best roast I ever had." Six said honestly, turning on heel and pursuing Tucker while Zinnia just sat there with a look on her face that was a minute bit perplexed and larger part proud.

"Yeah, momma! Your food's the best!" Diantha passed her own judgement which brought a genuine smile to her mother's face.

Back in the family room, Tucker was going through a closet as Six waited in the doorway. He just stood there because he didn't want to test the limits of the durability of the wooden walls with 1 ton of articulated titanium by leaning on them.

"Ah ha!" Tucker proclaimed, exiting the closet; a rolled up laminated map in hand. "Here we are..." He began as he removed the rubber band securing the roll.

"Alright," He said, coming to stand by Noble Six, unfurling the map in front of the two of them. "Right now..." He grabbed a marker off the coffee table - it looked like Dianthus had been using them to color in a picture that was also on the table. "... we are here." He jotted in a small dot.

Already, Six had scanned over the map and had his suit's optics take a snapshot of the map; during his rapid once-over, he'd located Vale, as well as some other locations of apparent note on the map; off to the west was another major city, Vacuo. Across the sea to the east was another continent and city, Mistral. Slightly northeast of his current position was Vale.

There was also a continent and city farther to the north still, separated by another sea; Atlas.

 _So, it's own power then after all?_

Again, all this information and ruminating took place in the length of time it took a normal person to blink.

"And as you can see, Vale is here." Tucker looked over his shoulder at Six but being unable to see through the reflective visor, he had no idea if he was paying attention. "It is about a half a day on horseback and a day and a half on foot. You, uh, might not be able to find a horse to accommodate you though. I mean, if chairs are can't hold you I can't imagine a horse that could." Tucker said.

"I'll manage." Six said, declining the map as it was offered to him. "No need. I have a good memory for things like that." The memory was in the form of the snapshot, but as it was stored on his systems it made the statement true. "Thanks. For the meal and the information."

Tucker just blinked at that refusal of the map but shrugged; if Spartan said his recall was that good, who was he to argue?

"Well, Spartan" Tucker began as he began leading Six to the front door, his wife and daughter following behind the seven foot metal clad man. "If you're ever in the neighborhood, don't be a stranger." He said, opening the door and offering his hand once more.

Six took the proffered hand and gave it a light - for him - shake. "If your wife is cooking, count on it."

Zinnia scoffed a laugh.

With that, Noble Six turned and headed away from the family that welcomed him into their home.

"BYYYYYE, IRON MAAAAAN!" Dianthus yelled, waving her arms excitedly. Six, looking over his shoulder, raised a single hand in farewell.

* * *

As Six exited the set of doors opposite the ones he'd entered Arca Spina from, he oriented himself into facing roughly in the direction he would need to travel.

 _Next stop, Vale. And some hard answers._

* * *

Spartan B312 did not know it then, but that would be his first and last time in Arca Spina; during his trek to Vale, a certain twisted mockery of a horse and rider would exit the smashed gates just a day after his departure, blood in its hoof prints and a dead village in its wake.

* * *

 **XX**

 **And another Chapter bites the dust.**

 **You know, I really didn't expect to get this out until maybe next Saturday. I was struggling big time with the dialogue - it's my weakest point in writing.**

 **The action scenes, and they were a bit lighter in this chapter, just FLOWED though.**

 **But dialogue? Getting into the characters' heads, it's so much harder than it looks, readers! I have a massive amount of newfound respect for writers who handle their characters' dialogue well.**

 **Seriously, give your appreciation to your favorite authors, people. They deserve it. And no, that wasn't a shameless attempt at self promotion.**

 **THIS is a shameless attempt at self promotion: GIFF ME AWL YUR REVUUZE.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

As Noble Six made his way down the mostly overgrown dirt path that he'd come across several hours after his departure from Arca Spina at a light jog - and what others would consider good clip of a run - he had one nagging thought on his mind.

 _I should've seen if Tucker had a spare canteen._

Normally, he would've been entirely on the ball and focused on his priorities; survival. Instead, the interactions and atmosphere of the Castaneus family had caused him to mentally stumble a bit.

The back and forth between Tucker and Zinnia; his easy going yet helpful attitude and her chiding yet warm demeanor.

And then there was Dianthus; her energetic curiosity and good cheer.

It reminded him too much of his own 'first' family.

And when Six's thoughts went there, they also invariably brought to mind what he considered his first failure.

Oh, he kept his reactions during the dinner clipped and made no betrayal of his own inner thoughts. As one who had been willingly molded from the young age of four to be a soldier - and one of humanity's greatest weapons - enforcing an outer calm was second nature to him.

Still, it had been like looking into a warped reflection of his own past. The only thing missing had been a young boy following Dianthus around everywhere.

The Spartan's thoughts (and emotions that had been stirred) were, thankfully, cut off as his body - practically on autopilot - had slowed to a quiet advance; his motion tracker displaying the presence of hostiles ahead and to his left.

His DMR, already in hand, had only one round left in the chamber and he briefly debated swapping out the nearly empty mag for a fresh one even as he moved stealthily a few meters more to the right before getting into a position to acquire a visual on the threats.

The grass grew in thick, tall shoulder height clumps here making for adequate cover for his advance but also to conceal the hostiles.

Six activated his visor's VISR (Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance) mode for both dealing with the fading daylight and in aid of the acquisition of the threats indicated on his motion tracker. The low-light enhancement that VISR provided was inferior to his Nightvision but that wasn't the reason he had activated it; it worked in conjunction with his neural lace to assign colored highlights to objects or living things in his field of view; green for friendly, red for hostile, blue and yellow for known and unknown objects of interest respectively.

It also gave him a headache, which is why he preferred not using it. His neural lace was twitchy like that.

Moving through the underbrush of some rather thorny looking bushes, was a loose group of creatures that had a strong resemblance to wild boars; well, boars native to this planet as, like with the other species of wildlife he'd come across, they were pure black in color, possessed those exoskeletal plates most fauna he'd observed had and had inordinately large curving tusks.

Oh, and apparently they had four eyes, all a glowing red.

The group, with every member highlighted in red, seemed to be facing the direction he had initially been heading from.

Then, one by one with some huffs and snorts, they turned back so they were facing to the northeast and started heading off in that direction at a slow pace - their heading would have them spilling out on the overgrown road he'd been on moments earlier.

Which means, they were headed in the same direction the Spartan had estimated his target, Vale, being in.

He had two choices; one, he could put them down here and then keep moving or two, he could head east a bit before breaking and traveling north - parallel to the road - avoiding combat.

On the one hand, while not necessarily hurting for ammo yet, Six didn't want to get into any engagements that were avoidable; if these creatures shared the omnivorous eating habits of the boars they resembled, then they would only become hostile if he encroached on their territory and posed a threat to their young.

While the Spartan hadn't seen any juveniles among the fifteen he had counted, that didn't mean they weren't there, staying close to their mothers.

On the other hand, there was that gut feeling again. The feeling that these things were NOT natural and should be eliminated; that their very existence was threat enough and therefore impermissible.

He weighed the pros and cons in his head before making his decision.

The group of Boarbatusks plodded through the overgrown weeds that had laid claim to the dirt road that once connected Vale to outlying smaller settlements.

They had been drawn toward a feeling of growing despondency before it suddenly vanished. Losing that lure, they had all turned toward in the direction they had previously been heading; a slightly more distant but larger source of delicious depression and simmering anger.

They didn't know it, but their heading would've taken them directly to Vale.

Would have if not for the explosions amongst their number.

Six had already sent two 40 mm pipe grenades down amongst the boar beasts' number; the first heading off the three that were in the lead of their hoggish procession and the second several feet back where the majority of the group was.

The detonations flattened the tall grass even as it reduced the farthest three, and twice that number in the center of their small horde, to so many bloody bacon bits.

Stowing his IGL, Six withdrew his rifle and sighted on a particular beast that was nearest his position.

Aiming at the proffered side of the boney plate of its exposed skull, Six's DMR barked and the 7.62 mm round made a nice splattering of brain matter out the other side. Even before the beast had fallen, Six had swapped mags before crouching low and cutting south before heading west, doubling back to circle around and come at them from their left flank.

Two of the remaining five had been stunned into inaction; the initial explosions having ruptured their eardrums as they shook their heads ineffectually. Three more were either more alert or put into a growing state of frenzy, as they turned away from the blast zones to face the direction the gunshot came from, snorting and grunting in successive heaves as they began to advance.

Hunkered low among the tall grass, Six advanced smoothly with his now drawn Combat Knife. He came out of the brush near one of the disoriented boars, grabbing it by the tusk and plunging his knife to the hilt into and its skull, just behind its masklike exposed portion where he figured the base of the spine to be, all before it could so much as squeal.

He moved just past it as it fell to the ground and attempted to repeat the action with the second insensate creature, but as he sank the knife in it uttered a loud gurgled grunt that caught the attention of its three remaining fellows that were, by now, around ten meters away.

They turned as one and two of them - the rightmost and central beast - immediately charged, aiming to gore or trample the armored human. Six quickly grabbed and tossed a Frag Grenade into their path which detonated just after they ran past it with a wet WHUMP and dual squeals of agony as their hindquarters were turned into so much bloody confetti.

Even as their bodies came to a sliding halt, the final boar beast had, to Six's surprise, had begun spinning in place like some sort of porkish dervish before launching itself at the Spartan at a faster speed then its brethren displayed.

Spartan B312 dropped his knife blade first into the soil and set himself, hunkering down a bit with his arms held out slightly before him with palms slightly open.

To a normal human, the whirling ball of tusk and pig would've been a blur as it approached - the details of the creature lost in its rapid rotations.

Six was not a normal human, which is exactly why when the enraged porker was within arms' reach he lashed out and clamped his hands shut, catching it by the tusks - stopping the beast's somersaulting tackle dead. Even as the hog's four eyes went wide, the Spartan - with minimal effort - lifted it up into the air, above his head - its legs flailing in alarm - before slamming it into the ground with a bone shattering CRUNCH that also snapped off the creature's namesake weapons.

Dismissing VISR mode abreast on oncoming migraine, Spartan B312 tossed the broken tusks to either side, knelt down to pluck his knife from the dirt, then wiping its blade on the coarse hair of the sublimating beast in front of him.

As Six returned his knife to its shoulder sheath, he took in the oddity that was the rapid and inexplicably quick decomposition the fallen demon pig was undergoing. He'd not watched the process before, only bearing witness to the resultant missing carcasses. The prior two times he was in combat, he just wasn't in the right mindset, but now with it happening right before him he could only draw a blank as to how it was happening.

The wisps of dark smoke trailing away was just another question.

Looking at the impression in the grass where the creature once was, he found no form of remains.

Six shrugged. He wasn't a scientist or a biologist. The only time he devoted to studying living things was when he was deciding the best way to take them apart.

Reorienting himself on the overgrown path so that he faced the way trailing north, he withdrew his DMR and began his trek once more, retreating into his thoughts as he did so.

Vale was a large city, as he'd been informed; the likelihood of it possessing an Interstellar Communication Array was high. His primary objective would be to locate any facility that looked like it would fit the bill. It should be easy enough to spot; planetside ICAs were pretty tall and usually built where there already was significant natural elevation to as to bypass cloudcover.

Once he'd tracked down the location, he'd have to infiltrate the facility and access a terminal connected to the communication relay. His Military Override handshake program should be able to override any civilian level AI if implemented directly and from there he would have the suborned AI send an encoded slipspace transmission on a wideband UNSC channel requesting evac.

He'd leave dealing with the colony to High Command; that was above his paygrade and outside his specific skillsets. Hopefully, they'd be lenient as humanity had bigger fish to fry than continuing a senseless blood feud.

That is all assuming, of course, that it is only a civilian level AI in control of the Array. If this colony had been able to stay off the UNSC's radar - as it seems to have - it may not be so easy; they may be a bit more competent and have better security. He REALLY hoped they didn't have a Smart AI. He really had no answer in how to bypass that.

And on that subject, Six wasn't able to even remotely access the colony's network and override the AI back when he first crashlanded on the colony; that was evidence in the favor of the technical capability of whomever was in charge - Insurrectionist or no.

Well, that or as he'd told Tucker, and his gear WAS damaged in the crash and was why Six was unable to establish a connection.

His secondary goal was to find an arms dealer and see about getting refit with some more ammunition; he wasn't sure if they'd take cR (Credits) here - what with their seeming disconnection from the UNSC - but it was worth a shot. If not, he'd have to find a way to make some of the local currency to that end.

That, or wait out his pick up.

He really couldn't see himself working tables in some cafe.

Plans set, Six picked up the pace.

* * *

The outside of walls of what had to be Vale had come into sight. They easily dwarfed the ones of Arca Spina by coming in at what Six estimated to be three times their height at roughly forty five feet.

Even from his position among the tree line along the much neglected road he'd been traveling, Noble Six could spot what he believed to be his primary objective.

In the distance, far beyond the wall was a cliff face and above that a large structure - and emerging from above that, a tall tower.

Eying the wall for guards of some sort but, surprisingly, finding none, the Spartan made his advance. The wall itself wasn't too remarkable and seemed to perform its purpose through sheer size alone, though, he noted there were actual hand holds interspersed up the length of it.

He had to wonder at that; was this not meant to keep people out? Then, another deterrent for those creatures then?

Stowing his DMR and beginning his ascent of the wall, Six had to think it seemed a bit excessive. The creatures didn't pose much of a threat, in Six's opinion, so long as you kept them where you could see them. Having a motion tracker helped on that front, considerably, so maybe he was a bit biased.

The one ton suit of energy shielded powered armor probably contributed to that bias, too.

As Six summited the wall, he laid eyes on the city of Vale for the first time.

It was rather massive. It also seemed to be broken up into several wards. The one nearest the portion of wall he was on appeared to be a residential district. Down below, as he zoomed in with his visor's magnification, he observed families and a couples walking down the streets; streets that were lined with multistory houses fashioned of brick. There were so many such streets that Six stopped counting.

He then crouched low as the rumbling sounds of a vehicle thundered through the air, growing louder, and being indicated on his motion tracker; it had come up swiftly from behind, from roughly the direction he'd been traveling. It was plainly obvious that it was some sort of VTOL dropship, but it wasn't a Pelican. As it flew past, he followed its course with his eyes - it was heading toward the tower in the distance that he'd figured was the location of the Array. Withdrawing his DMR and linking his HUD to the enhanced optics of the scope in the rifle, he magnified downsight to get an even better look.

The dropship was heading to some landing platform, but what caught Six's eye was that there seemed to be - as he panned down with the rifle - a naval docking bay along a waterway at the base of the cliff.

Two ways in; by sea or by air.

Looking out one more time over this section of the city, down forty or so blocks of the street he was conveniently situated to view down, it appeared to go straight up to the river he observed leading to the cliffs.

Six stowed his rifle once more and began looking for a quiet way down the wall. It didn't appear there was one. Just how are people supposed to leave?

Shrugging internally and assuming there were more handholds on the way down, Six lowered himself so he was hanging on the lip of the wall and, sure enough, his foot stuck into a crevice in the structure.

Climbing down actually took him slightly longer than up as he was doing so basically blind - the MJOLNIR armor may feed sensory information through his fingertips, but not his booted toes. So after about five minutes of shuffling his feet a bit awkwardly looking for more footholds, Six thought to hell with it and let go, engaging Armor Lock.

He landed with a rather loud THUD that cratered the concrete of the paved sidewalk and luckily the section of the street was empty as he released it. Only a few light poles were bent out of shape from the force of the EMP.

Quickly moving away from the minor property damage, Six made to travel down an adjacent road that would take him to the river.

As Spartan B312 walked down the somewhat crowded street, he could feel curious glances being made his way. Being more than a head and a half taller than most everyone else on the sidewalk and taking up more width of walking space probably had something to do with that, Six thought. That and he wasn't dressed in what appeared to be the normal attire was probably another, though normal seemed to be a matter for contention with all the variety in dress wear he was seeing.

There was no uniformity and the colors worn were as diverse as that of a rainbow. A few here in there had some semblance of armor on, but it was strange - almost medieval in style and even then didn't cover their whole bodies; some gauntlets here, a breastplate there. Six couldn't quite see how such slapshod armoring would be beneficial.

As Six wrote it off as possibly some sort of local cultural thing, he finally reached the river. Looking off to the northeast where the cliffs and tower above lay from on ground view showed that gaining access from the waterway may be a bit more difficult than he originally thought.

Crossing a concrete footbridge that connected both sides of the city together, he continued to scrutinize his target. He couldn't see it from his previous vantage point as the tops of many houses blocked much view of the river, but he had presumed that a footpath would've run alongside the river to where the ICA's dock was but unfortunately the waterway became more wide the closer it got to the cliff built facility.

Noble Six's ruminating was once again stymied by an the staccato of gunfire. Instincts kicking in, he took off across the bridge, heading for the source. Even as he put the bridge behind him and drew his DMR, he heard another grouping of shots. His motion tracker now showing the returns of a three yellow blips suddenly dropping off as a fourth yellow blip moved at a dizzying rate between the three before it, too, remained still.

As Six came to a stop at the corner of a building, he crouched down and linked his HUD's vision to his rifle's scope before pressing the business end around the side of the building. What Six saw was a bit mind boggling.

A girl whose age may have fallen anywhere within the early to mid teenage range was standing in the middle of a street with several other men face down on the ground (alive, as he could see their bodies rise and fall with their breaths) around her as yet another man - toting a cane - dressed in a white coat and dark trousers exited a building beyond her.

That wasn't the mind boggling thing, no, not even her eye catching color scheme of red and black. No, it was the large scythe-like gun (or gun-like scythe?) that captured the Spartan's attention. The thing was massive compared to the girl and continued her color scheme.

Six, snapping himself out of his examination of the strange weapon, focused himself back on what else was happening beyond the scope of his DMR - his helmet's in-built external microphones ratcheting up their sensitivity as his neural lace kicked in, transmitting the subconscious command to better listen in on what was being said while simultaneously causing a dull ache in the Spartan's skull.

"... and as much as I'd love to stick around," the man continued his diatribe," -THIS-" he raised his cane and the bottom end flipped up and open in the form of a gunsight and revealing a barrel beneath. "is where we part ways."

The man then fired the cane - as odd as that was to think - and a shrill fiery explosive was launched at the girl, who moved at preternatural speed - and height - up into the air in a overly showy flip to land in a crouch, her head scanning for the man who'd tried to kill her. She seemed to have missed him run across the street and past her, his head looking over his shoulder back at her as he did so.

The man with the cane should've been paying better attention to where he was going - if he had, he would've seen the rifle held at an angle around the corner of the building he was nearing.

Noble Six didn't know who was who here, or what was at stake, but he did know what he saw; a grown man just tried to kill a child. A child wielding a scythe, yes. A scythe wielding child who apparently brought these other grown men down, but in a non fatal fashion. That was an act of self restraint. The cane-man's action was not. That was enough to dictate Six's own actions.

As Mr. Cane came within two meters from his position, Six stepped out from cover. When Mr. Cane began turning around to face forward at one and a half meters, he saw a massive metal man standing in front of him. Mr. Cane tried to slow down and change course to the left, but the golem mirrored his movement, stepping forward and to the right. At one meter, Mr. Cane finally seemed to realize there was a rifle in the giant's arms - held upside down and butt facing forward. At half a meter, the rifle butt came forward, filling his vision before all went black.

As Six looked down on the unconscious man-in-white splayed out on the sidewalk, he wondered if he held back enough; Six had no problem with killing a would-be-killer, he just had compunctions about doing that in front of a child.

Said girl had now turned his direction after speaking to a middle aged man who'd come out of - what Six supposed - was some sort of shattered storefront. The girl moved toward him in a blink. Well, a blink for your average human; still, even to Six, the girl was nearly a blur of red and black. Nearly. Looking past her, Six was puzzled as he saw... red rose petals? Yes, red rose petals flutter to the ground in her wake.

"Whoa! Wheredidyoucomefrom, whatisthatarmoryouhaveon, whatkindofweaponisthat?!" The abnormally quick girl cheerfully unloaded at an abnormally rapid pace.

Six just blinked. He may have obscenely quick reflexes and visual acuity - but his enhanced perceptions did not extend to the translation of the verbal equivalent of a machinegun.

"What?" The Spartan asked, intelligently.

Before the girl could repeat herself, Six's motion tracker painted movement coming from directly behind him. He immediately spun in place lifting his rifle to the threat to see - nothing. The blip on his tracker suddenly stopped, about nine meters in front of him, but he saw nothing; not even the ripple signifying the presence of an Elite in Active Camo. Still, Six did not lower his gaurd - he was taken by surprise once on this planet by that, what Big Beowolf. He wouldn't let it happen again.

"Hey, whatareyou - I mean, what are you doing? And where did you get that armor? Did you makeityourself? Andwhatkindofgunisthat and-" Gatling mouth began again.

"There's no point in hiding." Six interrupted. His eyes scanned before him rapidly, looking for any sign of movement.

"Huh? I'm not hiding." The black-and-red girl continued, a bit confused.

"Not you." Was the Spartan's reply.

Suddenly, Six saw - from the corner of his eye - one of those black suited men pop up from above the ledge of the roof across the street from the direction the cane man had been running in; he was holding what looked to be a rocket launcher on his shoulder.

"MOVE!" Six shouted as he pivoted and elevated the aim of his rifle up to engage the new target. How did I miss him? Was he providing stationary overwatch for whatever was going down here?

As Six redirected his focus, he could now see the red-and-black girl follow his aim to the roof.

And then she suddenly took off.

Toward the rocket toting man.

Six knit his brows for two reasons; partly in curiosity as the girl used both her impressive speed and the force of the rounds fired from her scythe-rifle to leap up to the roof the man was on, trailing rose petals in her ascent.

And partly in vexation that she now interposed herself in his line of fire.

Even as she was in the process of landing on the roof and swinging that gunscythe of hers around, blunt part first, Six picked up movement again, from the direction he had originally turned. This time, Six did not make any moves. As the motion tracker return closed slowly, scythe girl had smacked the rocket-man in the side of the head and he... exploded into floating shards of fading glass.

When the blip closing on him was just shy of a meter away, Six acted.

The Spartan spun on his right heel, his arms close to his chest cradling his rifle before releasing his left hand's grip on the stock to lash out with his DMR as if it were a cudgel. The sound of glass shattering could be heard, and seemingly seen, as the blip that had been closing moved rapidly to his left; the air around the seemingly empty sidewalk suddenly spitting out a girl with tri-toned hair of a pink with white stripes and black color scheme. As the multicolored girl rolled under the impromptu melee weapon, she was brought closer to the unconscious cane-man.

Seemingly understanding her goal, Six recovered from the momentum of his swing and stepped back, planting a boot on the man's chest but leaning on his groundbound foot so as not to crush him. The Spartan then lowered the rifle to the man's head.

The multicolored girl paused after her roll as she was in the midst of... bringing an umbrella to bare. Her eyes widening slightly.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" The scythe girl exclaimed before landing nearby, perpendicular to and facing Six.

Unfortunately, she took her eyes off the tri-colored girl - which was a mistake - and she deftly rolled again and blindsided the scythe girl with a blow to the gut from the handle of her umbrella, causing scythe girl to let out a cough and drop her weapon as she fell to her knees. Even as the red-and-black girl was in the process of rising back to her feet, the umbrella girl extended a blade out of the top of said umbrella and put it to scythe girl's neck.

Tri colored girl stared hard at Six with a slight smirk on her face and tilted her head before gesturing forward with her chin as if to say 'step back and away from him or she gets a new hole to breath from'.

Six grit his teeth slightly; believe it or not, hostage situations WERE something Spartans were trained for. One may wonder why that may be, as the Covenant certainly never took hostages.

The answer was simple and also kept from the public; it went back to the UNSC's response to Insurrectionists who went that route of full-on-terrorist. Specifically, the response was to insert a covert team - or singular Spartan - behind enemy lines to eliminate the would-be hostage takers, with loss of civilian life dubbed as acceptable if unavoidable - with considerable leeway as to what defined 'unavoidable'.

In short, the UNSC did not negotiate with terrorists.

Nevertheless, the Spartan had a decision to make. Obey, and cede control to a girl who sides with would-be killers of children (and threatens to be one, herself) and hope she doesn't kill the red-and-black girl or call her bluff and show how serious he is; he didn't miss it earlier - when he put a gun to the cane-man's head, umbrella girl was put off balance. As if she never thought it was a possibility that someone would be as ruthless as her or the cane-man.

"I don't even know her." Red-and-black girl's eyes went wide, almost in betrayal. "But you know him." Six pressed his armored boot down on cane-man's chest, following with him exhaling before remaining immovable. The weight was enough to prevent it from rising again.

There was silence as the cane-man's face started to go blue. As the shade of his cheeks began to darken so did the eyes of umbrella girl widen. She made to press the blade tip against the side of scythe girl's neck.

"Perhaps I was not clear." Six put more pressure on the man's chest and what little air was still residing in his lungs was forcibly expelled, his face clearly a rosey purple now. "I don't know her, but you know him. If she dies, you gain nothing and I lose nothing. But-" Six grinded his boot slightly for effect. "-if he dies, what do you lose?"

The tri-colored girl was sweating. Oh, she was doing a good job of controlling her face - mostly, but it was clear that this is not how she expected things to turn out. Still, she wasn't moving. Time to ratchet it up once more. Six raised his rifle.

And pointed at scythe girl.

"Lost your nerve? Here, I'll do it myself." Six moved his left hand back up to the butt of the rifle and audibly clicked the safety.

At this, the tri-colored girl shoved the red-and-black girl at Six and split into five different iterations of herself, bolting in five different directions - one going left headed for an alley way, one going right - back across the street - to head down another alley near where the building where the illusory rocket-man was, one running past six in the direction of the blown out storefront was and the last two running down away in slightly to the right and left of each other down the road away from Six.

Calmly, Six stepped off of the cane-man - whose chest now started rising and falling in big heaves - and lowered his rifle, releasing his right hand from the grip and holding it by the stock as his right hand moved up to his left shoulder, grabbing the hilt of his Combat Knife.

"Are you alright?" Six asked scythe girl, who - still on her knees on the road - was seemingly in a state of shock.

"You..." She began, as her head looked back up at Six suddenly noticing Noble Six flip the knife around - catching the blade between thumb and forefinger. "What are -" She slowly turned her head, as if to follow where the visor of the metal man was facing and seeing two identical umbrella girls running away down the street, each almost to a corner of a building that would lead down two opposite alleyways. "Wait..!" She began, as if realizing what the Spartan was about to do.

Too late.

Six snapped his right forearm forward and the WHOOSH'ing and twirling sound of a rapidly spinning knife cut through the air.

"NO!" The red-and-black girl screamed, trying to get to her feet to no doubt put that insane speed of hers to the task to run after and catch the knife from the air. But she stumbled. She shut her eyes as an audible THUNK was heard, followed by the sound of a body hitting pavement. A fraction of a second later, the sound of four panes of glass breaking, each from a different direction, could be heard.

"Why..." Scythe girl sounded like she was going to cry as she bowed her head slightly. Suddenly, her swimming view of the ground was disturbed as the butt of the metal man's rifle interjected itself. She blinked her growing tears away as she unconsciously looked over the weapon - an act that was instinctual to her as breathing is for every other vertebrate.

And in her, as some would say unhealthy, inspection took place her eyes beheld a certain switch. A certain labelled switch. The switch was flicked up, next to the top label. The top label read:

"Safety... on?" Her head and eyes tore away from the rifle - almost a sacrilegious act in her own book - and looked into the impassive reflective visor of the metal man. He just nodded and began walking away - in the direction he threw the knife.

"Keep an eye on Mr. Cane." Six said as he walked over to the fallen tri-colored girl.

Absent-mindedly, scythe girl obliged, picking up her gunscythe but not pointing it at the man as she stood over him before looking back down the road, watching the heavily armored man approach the girl who... did not have a knife sticking out of her? She watched as the man pluck his knife from the ground and bring it in front of him where she couldn't see before reaching down with his left hand, grabbing, then lifting up the tri-colored girl.

He held her under his arm like a sack of potatoes, with his arm pinning her to the side of his body. The metal man then raised one of his armored feet and brought it down with a groaning of metal on metal as he ground his foot on... the umbrella, warping it so badly so that it wouldn't fold out. He then brought his foot down on the tip of it and a SNAP could be heard. Then, he turned back toward the scythe girl and began walking back.

A part of the red-and-black girl bemoaned the destruction of the umbrella; it was a weapon. It did nothing wrong. Only the one who used it did. Or tried to.

Unbeknownst to Six, scythe girl continued on her internal back and forth of whether or not she should feel bad about what he did to the weapon that could've been her end as he walked back over to her.

Before he even arrived, his motion tracker detected movement - it read as right on top of him.

The Spartan leapt to the side, shifting his captive so that she was held under his left arm as he swapped hands on his rifle - flicking off the safety in the process - ,grabbing it by the grip with his right hand and bringing it to bare in an unorthodox one-handed fashion at the new arrival; a bespectacled green-eyed woman with golden yellow locks done up in a bun a white blouse, black skirt and - of all things - a flowing purple cape with tattered edges.

There was a moment of silence as Six regarded the woman who... somehow almost got the drop on him (literally) and the blonde eyed him with an unreadable expression; her right hand slightly above waist level, curled menacingly around... a riding crop?

Riding crop it may be, but Six's gut told him that it was more than it appeared to be. Even still, Six's mind railed at his instincts. _A scythe that doubles as a gun; okay, a bit unwieldy to consider but it was shown to work. A cane with a hidden grenade launcher; never thought I'd see one of those. An umbrella with a hidden blade and its canopy made of surprisingly sturdy material; again, a first. But a riding crop? What is it, secretly a taser? And is it telescopic having deceptive range?_

Six was actually sharing the lattermost thoughts with scythe girl at that moment, until the blonde spoke, breaking the silence.

"Who are you?" Her voice was even yet cold.

"Someone who sometimes acts before he thinks, especially when a child's life is at stake."

Scythe girl seemed to realize that statement was regarding her and her she adopted somewhat of a pout.

"And whose actions put that child's life in danger." The woman reposted without missing a beat.

"Hey! I'm not a-"

Scythe girl was silenced by a slight turn of the head by the caped goldy, even though her eyes never left the metal man, the blonde's presence seemed to bare down on her.

"Her life was in danger the moment she picked up a weapon."

Caped goldy looked like she was about to respond but Six continued, repeating an axiom he had ingrained in himself ever since hearing it, ever since being taken in by his 'second' family.

"A weapon wielded without will boasts no edge."

"You threatened to shoot her yourself. How are you any different from those who put a child's life at risk?"

The cold blonde and the metal man continued to stare each other down. The tension was nearly visible. The scythe girl couldn't let it go on.

"IT WAS ON!" Scythe girl exclaimed.

The caped goldy slightly raised a brow but otherwise remained stationary.

"Thesafetywason! Imean-" She took a breath. "The safety was on. I wasn't in any danger from him!"

Some of the tension seemed to subside, but not all of it. Suddenly, a device in the woman's pocket lit up and began to emit a little jingle. The blonde moved her unoccupied hand into her pocket, retrieved the device and held it to her ear.

Six, once more subconsciously increasing his helmet's external mics was able to listen in.

"Glynda, I see you were able to make it in time." A man's voice could be heard saying.

"Yes, Headmaster."

 _Headmaster?_

The sound of sirens could be heard rapidly approaching. It was grating on the ears for Six, but he powered through; this conversation seemed important.

"I'd like you to bring Ms. Rose and the unknown to the tower."

 _The tower?_ The Spartan's eyes darted over to the ICA on the cliff then back to the blonde.

 _Interesting._

"Sir, the former I can understand but-"

"Both please, Glynda. I would like to speak with him; assuming it is a him." There was a light chuckle after that.

The sirens, and the vehicles with the flashing lights - the police, apparently - pulled up just down the road; three vehicles in total; two squad cars and one armored vehicle that looked to be a transport. Two officers departed the lead cruiser and began to approach the position of Six, the blonde - Glynda, apparently - and scythe girl.

Glynda sighed - a longstanding sort of borne of resignation that displayed she's catered to the wishes of this 'headmaster' before.

"Very well." She then pressed something on the communication device and returned to her pocket. Eyeing the metal man for a moment, the air of tension faded significantly as her shoulders relaxed somewhat, the riding crop she held drifting a bit lower - but not all the way down.

Six's external mics reduced in volume as he continued to observe the so-named Glynda even as the officers came to within speaking distance.

"Um, sir? We're going to need to take these two in, so..." One brown haired, mustached officer began.

Six just set his triple colored cargo down next to her unconscious cohort and immediately after that, both officers knelt down and slapped cuffs on their wrists before they suddenly, to Six's astonishment, levitated.  
Noble Six caught the caped blondy, err, Glynda gesturing with her riding crop as the two apparent felons inexplicably defied gravity all the way to the now opened back of the paddy wagon where they were deposited before she let her hand and crop fall back to her side. As the two officers that approached headed back to their squad car, a single officer from the armored transport climbed into the back and appeared to secure the two crooks to the inside of the vehicle. He then hopped out, slammed the doors, went around and climbed back into the passenger side seat and all three vehicles departed.

 _So, a riding crop that has some sort of anti-gravity function? This is worrisome. Anti-gravity generators are only a recent addition to UNSC ships and are large bulky affairs_ , Six thought, _yet these colonists have come up with a way to miniaturize them and a power source?_

For the first time since arriving on this world, Six was actually a bit intimidated.

"Well," Glynda began. "Now that the trash has been taken out, if you two would come with me, the Headmaster wishes to see you."

"The Headmaster?" Scythe girl, who had been surprisingly quiet during all this spoke up. "As in the Headmaster of Beacon, Headmaster? As in, Headmaster Ozpin, Headmaster?!" Her voice was getting more and more excited, and with it, quicker and quicker.

"Yes." Was Glynda's simple reply as she raised her riding crop... and suddenly, all three of them were levitating. She seemed to be straining a bit as her brows were knitted in concentration. The three lifted straight up for roughly 50 meters before zooming off toward the structure on the top of the cliff.

All the while, scythe girl was squealing in joy and excitement while firing off questions that caped blo- GLYNDA, replied to with one word answers.

Unbeknownst to all, a figure with a pair of burning, golden eyes watched what transpired from several blocks away - the teeth of this same individual gritting and grinding before they tore their eyes away, slinking back into the shadows.

* * *

As Six was propelled through the air by technology that surpassed what the UNSC was capable, he remained silent as he idly took in the sights below while ruminating on the upcoming meeting with this 'headmaster' and the location in question they were headed to.

According to the chatterbox - Ruby Rose, apparently her name was - Beacon was the name of an academy for the training of huntresses and huntsmen in Vale. This meant that there was some significance behind those titles; it was more than one who would, as Six previously thought, hunted wild game it would seem.

The academy itself was situated around the tower for which it is named. The tower, it turned out, did indeed house a communication array. However, if the font of nonstop knowledge was to be believed, it was only used for planetside transmission of data as its name, CCTS - Cross Continental Transmit System - would imply.

Six wasn't completely shaken by this reveal; if this tower was only a relay among a network, that network was likely connected to the Interstellar Communication Array. He would just have to access the network directly from this tower and go from there. How he would go about that, well, he was still mulling that over. Brute force was always an option but if the gravity manipulation technology was just the tip of the iceberg, that could actually turn out to be a untenable scenario.

Besides, he still hadn't made any solid confirmations of Insurrectionist leanings.

Another method was to evaluate this headmaster, Ozpin. Obviously, as the one in charge of the academy, he likely had the most free reign. If he could find out where his loyalties lay, and if they were not anti-UNSC, then Six would reveal himself and things could proceed above board; where the Spartan preferred things.

All this cloak and dagger stuff minus the actual use of Active Camouflage and his trusty Combat Knife was really getting on his nerves.

Six was called from his thoughts as the scenery - which he had only loosely been paying attention to (like Ruby's excited ranting) , began to grow underneath them as they descended.

The gravity defying trio set down shortly below the base of the so-called CCTS Tower.

Glynda was looking rather winded and she shot what Six interpreted as a minor glare at him out of the corner of her eyes. He hypothesized that perhaps the Gravity Crop, as he came to call it, ran off a connection to her neural lace and required her concerted attention to maintain, making the manipulating three individuals for an elongated period to be mentally taxing.

Unbeknownst to Six, Glynda had almost had the mental equivalent of a hernia with how heavy he was.

"If you'll follow me." Glynda gestured with her free hand as she led the three into the tower.

Spartan B312 gave a sidelong glance at the now quiet scythe girl; she had an irrepressible grin on her face and seemed to percolate in her boots as they followed Glynda.

Six scrutinized the ground floor; it was mostly an open floor facility built in the shape of a large circle with a hallway leading through an inner such shaped wall that went farther into the interior. There were several branching hallways off the one they were following, but the Spartan had no way of knowing where they went without investigation. Along the way, Noble Six noted a section that had armed guards posted at either side of a door; _likely the area I'm interested in_.

Noble Six was brought out of his thoughts by a certain red-and-black themed girl.

"So, um, I never asked you your name." She somewhat nervously began. "I mean, I was just so floored. I mean, we're in THE Beacon Academy! My sister is going to be attending here this year! I've been going to Signal to train to become a huntress becauseIreallywanttohelppeoplejustlikemomanddadand-"

Honestly concerned the girl would knock herself out due to loss of oxygenated blood to the brain, he interjected.

"Spartan B312." He told her what he told Tucker. It was true, in a way; it was a hat he wore. A big, metal, all encompassing hat, but a hat nonetheless. A hat he wore and became and the 'he' who wore it ceased to be so that only the hat remained.

Because 'he' was weak.

By this point, they had reached the elevator - a robust yet tasteful affair with twin metal doors that had some sort of engraving cast into them that displayed an image when they were closed. An image Six didn't know what to make of. It was circular with odd geometrical shapes around the outer rim and a strange symbol in the center.

The assembly was set between two pillars reminiscent of roman architecture. Above the doors was a 'roof' being upheld by the pillars and upon that roof was another sort of emblem, but one was more easily able to make sense of; two gears, one inside of the other.

"Beethreeonetwo?" The girl repeated after taking a much needed breath as they stepped into the lift.

Glynda, who'd remained silent, just pressed the top button, the doors closed and they began their ascent anew, except under more mundane means.

"Um, I don't mean to offend but..." The scythe girl hesitated, as if not sure to continue; her eyes stealing glances at the far larger metal man.

Six raised a brow then realized that the gesture was lost so he nodded his head.

"Isn't that..." She sighed but then smiled. "No, never mind."

She looked like she had more to say, but they arrived at the top floor and Glynda led them to a another pair of double doors; these were made of wood and depicted a scene which looked to bare some significance but the Spartan couldn't make much sense of it.

"Mr. Beethreeonetwo, wait here." Glynda said, looking at Six - some of that coldness and tension slipping into her tone and posture, but not much; apparently she was trying to assert that there was no other choice but to heed her word.

Six just nodded and Glynda led Ruby past the doors and into the room beyond before shutting the doors behind her.

With nothing but his thoughts to accompany him, Six decided to examine the door in more detail and the image displayed.

Across the span of the two doors, there was a circle again that was broken on the left and on the right. Inside the broken circle on the right was the embossed sillouette of a broad shouldered man with his hands on his hips and head held high. In the break of the circle to the right of him was what appeared to be trees, small birds and above that were diagonal beams through the trees - perhaps sunlight.

On the left side, inside the circle was the engraved figure of a somewhat shorter and lankier man. He was hunched over slightly and had his arms balled into fists at his sides. In the break of the circle to the left were what looked like... well, one looked like a Beowolf, another looked large two headed serpent with no tail end and around them was clearly depicted flames. Around them there were small spirals coming from above the beasts depicted and curling up - perhaps a representation of smoke.

In the center between the two men was the form of what seemed to be just a plain manshape - not bent and angular like the one on the left and not large or openly expressive like the one on the right.

It was as Six was looking at the central figure that the door reopened and an excited Ruby and Glynda - who bore an almost imperceptible smile exited.

"Ican'tbelieveit! Thisisawesome!" The scythe girl's mouth began to run a a mile a minute once more before Glynda's voice cut through.

"Mr. Beethreeonetwo, the Headmaster is waiting to see you."

The Spartan just gave a nod and walked through the still opened doors. The room beyond was rather spacious and the windows that framed the circular room offered quite the view.

The architecture was reminiscent of the detailing done to the outside of the elevator doors; roman columns lined the outer walls , equidistantly spaced and between each - save for to the left and right of the side of the room Six entered through - were windows. Above, gears turned as part of a mechanism that the Spartan could only guess at. Above that, several glowing neon green light sources could be seen through another large pane of glass. About four meters in was a slightly curved desk upon which the double gear symbol was displayed.

Beyond that sat a light gray haired sunglasses wearing man clad in dark clothes with a cane across his lap.

The Spartan's scan of the room was complete before he made his second step past the threshold.

"Greetings, Spartan is it?" The man - the voice from the phone, Ozpin - called out to Six.

Six just gave a nod. "And you must be the headmaster."

"That I am."

As Noble Six crossed the room and he got a better look at the man before him without the aid of his visor's magnifying optics, he found he still couldn't rightly say what his age was. He could be anywhere from his early thirties to a very well aged mid forty year old.

"You wished to speak with me?" Six queried.

He got the feeling this man was dangerous yet paradoxically benign; at least, that was his gut reaction to him. He exuded a calm yet formidable feeling about him that Six had no real comparison to. It's like he was just as he appeared, seated before him and yet... he seemed to 'extend', for lack of a better word, past the table.

Six stopped short of entering into what he felt was his 'zone', which ended a foot and a half or so beyond the table.

Ozpin merely raised a brow before taking a mug - which had been hidden under the table by its width - and brought it to his lips, taking a sip.

"Indeed, I did. Well, I do." He smiled slightly, the mug still held in hand. "You made quite an impression on Ms. Goodwitch."

"Did I?" Six was starting to get weary of this; quite frankly, he didn't know what this man wanted and it was throwing him off. And yet, the headmaster was in a position of authority; Six's efforts to get into contact with the UNSC could ride on how this meeting went.

Otherwise, Six was going to have to infiltrate this academy at a later point, and now, was a known factor - unless he goes in without his armor which he was loathe to do. Actually, impossible to do as he was nearly certain that the CCTS had an AI assisting its upkeep; the sheer flow of information would require far more hands than there was room for from what he'd seen of the lower level of the tower where the mainframe seemed to be located. Only an AI could handle that.

And Six couldn't hack an AI - even a 'dumb' AI; that's what the override system in his armor's system was for.

So long as the AI wasn't military grade or a Smart AI.

And if it was? Well, then this was Six's ONLY shot. He witnessed that, as ridiculous as it was, Gravity Crop that Glynda had. If technology like that was what could be brought to bare in great enough numbers then forcing his way to the mainframe was out of the question.

Furthermore, Six was no stranger to espionage or sabotage. He had quite a record in his years before being tasked to Noble Team. The thing was, though, those were 'In then Out' operations; he had assets he could request beforehand and, though he never had to make use of it, the possibility of emergency extraction.

So, Six buckled down and forced himself calm. Trust had to come from somewhere and it's pretty hard to establish that without seeing eye to eye.

Literally.

Noble Six raised his hands to the sides of his helmet, depressurized it and took it off, holding it between the inside of his left arm and his torso.

Ozpin merely raised a brow. " 'A weapon wielded without will boasts no edge.'. Quite a statement." He swirled his mug around in his hand slightly. "That can be a dangerous mindset."

Six shrugged. "Anything can be dangerous if taken to the extreme."

"True enough. Too sharp, too focused and a blade will be too thin and brittle; unable to even do what it was made to do."

Ozpin just took another sip of his coffee before continuing.

"To continue the analogy, sometimes a sword must be reforged."

"What are you saying, exactly, headmaster Ozpin?"

The man smiled a moment before getting a little more of a serious expression on his face.

"I'm saying I'd like to offer you a spot here at my academy, as a student."

Six blinked at that.

"Why?"

Ozpin picked up the communication device that had been sitting on his desk, grasped the sides to expand the viewscreen, swiped his forefinger over it a few times and a two videos popped up, side by side. He turned the device around in his hand so that Six could see it.

The first video was taken the docks near a bridge that the Spartan recognized as the one he crossed. The second was from a stationary camera that was mounted up underneath the awning of a storefront.

The same storefront that that the Spartan had a little showdown at earlier, 'From Dust Till Dawn'.

As the videos began playing simultaneously, Six was privy to what transpired before he arrived; four blacksuited thugs following Mr. Cane walking up and into the store. Moments later one of the blacksuits was kicked out a window with Ruby on his heels. The other three ran out after her and she laid into them, firing her gunscythe to help her move around.

In the second video, the Spartan saw himself halfway across the bridge right when the shooting started, then he bolted the rest of the way to where it all went down.

The rest happened just as he remembered, except when it came to the triple colored girl, she was visible the whole time, her illusions not affecting the playback.

"You and Ms. Rose displayed two primary traits that are valuable above all else in terms of Huntsmen and Huntresses; bravery and skill. And while I may not approve of you giving Ms. Rose that scare or taking things so far with Mr. Torchwick, criminal though he may be," he gestured the portion of the video where Six had bluffed the triple colored girl while she had Ruby hostage. "in the end, you were able to bring about the apprehension of two dangerous criminals."

Six tilted his head slightly. Ever since entering the city, he had yet to see any overt signs that this colony is hostile to the UNSC. Actually, he had yet to see anything typical of colonies he had been sent to before, such as ships leaving atmosphere, which is what he thought he'd come across after entering what was considered a major city.

It was somewhat disconcerting for the level of technology they've displayed otherwise what with the handheld gravity manipulating device Glynda used earlier.

Six was just going to bite the bullet and come out with it. He purposefully left his right hand free and at his side near his Energy Sword in case things went south.

Now or never.

"Headmaster, I'm going to be frank with you." Six's face became as of stone. He locked eyes with the professor and watched him carefully for any sign of either deception or tensing to make a move for a weapon - though, the latter, what with he's seen today he'd bet the cane was what he'd need to be wary of.

The Headmaster noticed the shift in Spartan's demeanor and sat up in his seat slightly. It was if the young man in front of him just aged several years. He placed his coffee mug onto his desk.

"I'm listening."

"I'm not from here."

* * *

 **This chapter kicked my butt. I had most of it written until the Ozpin conversation and that part just DIDN'T want to be written. There was going to be more Six trying to be evasive and play word games but I thought, TO HELL WITH IT.**

 **And thus, Six is coming clean. Sort of. There'll probably be some misunderstandings.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay people, sorry to be a downer but there's no action in this one. Just a lot of talking and inner thoughts. The next Chapter, things will kick back up. Also, I hope there are no Jaune fans reading this because I've decided Six will be taking his place.**

 **CLARIFICATION: When I say Spartan B312 is taking Jaune's place, I don't mean as Pyrrha's lover.**

 **Them's the breaks.**

 **Also, at the end I'll be asking something that I hate to have to do, but... well, you'll see.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

"I'm not from here."

The professor cocked a brow slightly.

"Oh, of that I am aware." Ozpin easily relayed, relaxing back into his seat. "I wouldn't have made an offer of admittance entirely blindly."

He once more brought his mug of joe to his lips, taking a languid sip before continuing.

"As Headmaster of Beacon Academy, I have some contacts in certain... relevant positions; contacts that were able to discern that there is no one by the name of Spartan Beethreeonetwo registered as living in Vale." The Headmaster lowered his cup to the desk once more.

"Oddly, even given your" He gestured with his right hand at the Spartan. "Rather unique description, they were unable - so far - to inform me of anything outside of your initial arrival in the city from over the Wall in the southern sector of the Residential District." He paused momentarily, his right hand falling back down to grasp the handle of his mug once more.

"Though, it has only been little more than half an hour since my inquiry, so that amount of information is likely to have been expanded upon." He brought the liquid caffeine to his mouth once more.

Six, though he didn't show it, was satisfied in his impression of the man behind the desk; his assessment of the headmaster as being more cerebral than just a genial fellow acting on a whim seemingly proven in the prudence of his actions.

What Six took away from this is that the speed in which Ozpin had acquired the, albeit, small amount of accurate information on him only led credence to the capibility and competence of his connections as well as a possible hint as to their tool of choice.

Of what the professor revealed, none of it was surprising to Six; the headmaster already showed him the altercation he and Ruby had been part of earlier which meant that there was likely extensive surveillance in the form of a system of cameras set up through the city. That, or a diverse smattering of independent feeds could be forcibly linked together and used in tandem to observe the city, which again led credence to this aforementioned tool.

A system linked into a network that either he, Ozpin, directly could access or one - or more - of his contacts could, and do so quickly; at a speed which exceded what was humanly possible, which meant one thing to the Spartan.

The involvement of an AI; one tied into the city and the network itself and in all likelihood was located, physically, right here in the CCTS Tower.

The considerations and hypotheses that rolled through Noble Six's mind were formed in the span of a few seconds - the length of time it took the headmaster to complete his latest imbibement of coffee.

"With respect, I firmly doubt that." The Spartan flatly stated. "These contacts of yours, does their purview extend beyond the city?" Though Ozpin made no visible effort to address that question, it was hardly relevant; to Six it was rhetorical.

"At most, unless they - or you - have eyes and ears amongst the trees themselves beyond the walls of Vale, the only prior mention of my presence could be traced to a settlement south a ways from here; the village of Arca Spina."

The headmaster visibly seemed to be paying a touch more attention now. Did this young man hail from a small frontier town such as that? On the one hand, it would make sense that a full history would not be on record as such as the outlying - and declining - smatterings of populations only rarely played host to former Huntsmen and women, and therefore, fed little information into the CCTS's network by way of Scroll usage.

On the other hand, the professor found it highly improbable that someone hailing from one of such disconnected a place would be in possession of such advanced, Atlesian-esque gear. Those dwindling locales usually played host to the most reckless of civillians and the odd, disillusioned former Huntsmen.

The headmaster's inner musings were interrupted as the Spartan continued.

"Even then, as improbable as that may be, you would not divine my origin." Six continued. "No, to ascertain my arrival on this continent, you would need to reference a certain unregistered and unexplained Slipspace rupture, likely detected by your satellites."

The professor, almost imperceptibly, stiffened at that statement. Six noticed, however, but couldn't tell what word exactly illicited the reaction. The Spartan wouldn't have to wonder for long, however.

The headmaster leaned forward, his face still a mostly functional mask obscuring his inner mind, but could not completely hide his intrigue.

" 'Satellites?'." This was not a term unknown to Ozpin. It was the name of a failed technology, not often brought up.

Six, however, was not aware of that as he frowned internally. Did this colony have a different name for them? Perhaps 'eyes in the sky' or something? Or perhaps, the professor was playing dumb for whatever reason. Perhaps, probing him. A definition then to dissolve all pretenses.

"An artificial object intentionally placed into orbit. Typically tasked with either observation of the world below, space beyond atmosphere or tasked with aiding in the transmission of data across the world below it or out to an Interstellar Network."

The headmaster could not keep both his brows from raising nor could he keep himself from cutting in. He didn't know what Spartan meant by 'slip space rupture' but the rest of what he'd said was beginning to paint a picture. Or rather, providing color to Spartan's initial statement of 'I'm not from here.'.

"So, when you say you're not from here..."

"I mean that I am not native to this colony." Six finished that thought with an either damning or compelling truth for the professor, whose eyebrows gained even more altitude; while a somewhat comical expression was beginning to form on the erstwhile indecipherable mask of the older man's face, Six continued to scrutinize it and his body language carefully.

So far, Noble Six had not seen nor heard anything that would prompt his making a grab for his Energy Sword, but he remained vigilant. He had yet to reveal his allegiance to the UNSC so until he had and could gauge the headmaster's reaction of that, he would not let his guard drop even in the most infinitesimal a fraction.

"You are claiming that... you are not of this world?"

"I am."

The professor schooled his features somewhat, but couldn't completely recover the rather ambiguous facade he wore formerly.

"That is quite a claim..." The headmaster took a calming sip of his drug of choice. That his motion was somewhat stiff was not lost on Six.

"And one I would not make without some evidence. However, all that that would require would be to look into the detection of an unregistered Slipspace signature occurring in atmosphere - an event that would likely be flagged as unusual - in the late evening, a day and a half ago, the source of which could traced to a forested locale a bit aways southwest of Arca Spina."

The headmaster blinked even as he kept his brew near his lips, performing a sacreligious act of inaction when in contact with the ambrosia of the gods. Compounding this act of heresy, he took the mug away from his lips and set it back down on the table while sitting up straight in his seat once more.

"You have been rather candid in revealing something you may have wished to keep close to the vest. Of course, I will need to look into what you've claimed but I cannot help but hope your openness would extend to answering a question of mine."

The Spartan's face was still hewn of stone as he nodded.

"Why tell me this?"

Six took a moment to organize his thoughts before making his reply.

"It is the course of action that would likely result in less, or no, bloodshed." Six noted that Ozpin's eyes hardened nigh imperceptibly at his choice of words, but powered on. "I will continue to be frank, headmaster Ozpin; I believe you to have something I want." Ozpin's eyes noticeably narrowed. "You are the highest ranking figure of authority at this facillity and therefore have access to the CCTS. It is that access that I require in order to transmit a message."

The headmaster, who seemed to have been almost readying himself for action had relaxed considerably toward the end of Six's words - as to why, Six had little idea.

"A message?" The professor's elbows met the table as he leaned forward slightly; his hands raising in front of his face and his fingers interlocking. "And this message would be?"

This was it, Noble Six decided, as he readied himself fully to draw his sword. His next few words and Ozpin's carefully observed reactions would decide his own.

"A request for evac on a wideband UNSC channel."

The Spartan watched, time seemingly slowing to a crawl as he took in the headmaster's response. A response that culminated in merely the raising of a brow.

There was a silence between the two, one that was only short of complete and total due to the sounds of the moderately loud TOCK of the minute hand of the clockface beyond the professor and the light clacking of the great gears above.

The verbal silence was ended when the professor made his reply.

"Though I have yet to validate your claims, you have seemingly been rather honest. Rather upfront in your intentions, as well. I would like to return that courtesy." He lowered his hands from in front of his face even as he parted them that they may rest palms down upon his desk; the Spartan's view of the headmaster's face unobstructed once more.

"Spartan, I believe you are farther from home than you realize."

Six fought successfully against himself as his brows remained unmoving. He didn't get the chance to ask for clarification.

"You have used terminology for technology that, while attempted, does not exist here on Remnant. The failure to implement satellites led to the creation of this very tower and the CCTS itself. You have also referred to Remnant as a 'colony' and when you spoke of an 'interstellar network' you implied that you believed Remnant to be but one of many interconnected worlds."

Others may have nodded to the professor's deductions but Noble Six remained steadfast. Still, the revelations offered by the headmaster's words were taking shape in the Spartan's mind. While not the worst case scenario - that of being stranded on an Inurrectionist colony, it was still an unwelcome shape. It was beginning to look, sound and act like a duck; or rather, a duckling. The ugliest of ducklings that Six had discarded early on because of how improbable it was.

The duckling, turned swan, opened its beak and with the voice of professor Ozpin, it trumpeted:

"Remnant has no connection to other worlds and its people owe their origins to nowhere else."

And there it was. Of course, the headmaster could be lying, but Six was an expert at reading people. Even if the older man was rather adept at concealing his inner thoughts behind a facade of lackadaisical joviality and ever present bemusement, ever since he lowered his hands from his face it was as if he had physically removed a mask. The man before him now was serious yet fully believed his own words; in other words, he was being honest.

"I see."

Six deflated internally. He had made no prior plans to account for this possibillity because it just seemed so... impossible. Humans, evolving naturally on a planet just seemed so very unlikely that he'd dismissed the thought when it'd occured originally, outright. There was irony in this, he was sure; as vigilant as he had been trained to always be, a tenet to cover all one's bases and expect the unexpected, it was his willfull blindness to one vector that led to the sundering of his still nebulous machinations.

The only evidence of the Spartan's dilemma was the brief unfocusing of his eyes as he ruminated.

"Do you need a moment?" The professor offered.

A moment seemed woefully inadequate in Six's opinion, but it wouldn't be required as of yet; a new, yet more longterm plan was forming in his mind. Oh, it was still a barebones proposal, with large missing sections, but the overall goal was certainly there.

If this colony - no, if Remnant, lacks the technology to send an message via Slipspace then the solution was simple; make available the technology.

Noble Six didn't understand the innerworkings of nor even how to go about constructing a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine (earth's humanity's way of travelling in Slipspace) nor did he know the intricacies of creating and maintaining a Slipspace field.

He didn't have to.

Though the systems had been fried, the Pod he had arrived in contained a micro Slipspace generator and even if it was of alien construction, the scientists who had made it their brief study back on Reach were making headway into it. Who's to say that Remnants' scientists couldn't do the same?

Six realized that even if it was years - decades even - down the line, giving this sort of technology would tip many scales; many more that he could even see. It was inherently dangerous. Slipspace had been used as more than just a means of travel; it could be (and had been) fashioned into a bomb; a bomb that claimed the life of one of Six's closer former team mates, Jorge - even if it was a life willingly committed.

The possibillity existed that if Slipspace travel was never known to Remnant, they may never be noticed by the hated Covenant.

But that would mean letting go. That would, in Six's mind, mean surrender.

Spartan B312 couldn't give up; he WOULDN'T give up his fight against the Covenant. It made up such a large part of who and what he was. He just could NOT allow himself to accept being stranded here without even trying to get back.

Noble Six's eyes found their focus on Ozpin's own not even one full second after the professor last spoke.

"Headmaster, is your offer still open - knowing what you know?"

The professor leaned back slightly.

"Well, Spartan, considering what little I know of you threatens to be all of what I know of you, there are certain blanks that only you could fill in."

"I would be open to answering some of your questions, though there may invariably be some I would not be at liberty to."

Ozpin took a moment before succombing to the siren call of java, his hand reaching out to retrieve the neglected ceramic chalice to bring the sumptious nectar to his much deprived lips, where he took a sip.

"Let's start with that then." The headmaster began. "You say not be at liberty to speak on some things - why is that?"

"It is the nature of my profession. My duty. I am a soldier."

That, while somewhat worrisome, seemed to explain the young man's demeanor to Ozpin; how Spartan had acted to the sounds of combat and how he resolved said combat; with machine-like efficieny. While there were soldiers on Remnant, they hadn't seen the sort of action that likely molded Spartan; the sort of action that was man against man.

"And you are a soldier of..." The headmaster thought back a moment. "Of this 'UNSC'?"

"Yes."

"And what does that stand for, exactly?"

Finding no problem elaborating on that, Six made his reply.

"The UNSC is the United Nations Space Command, the military, explorative and scientific arm of the United Earth Government." Heading off a possible follow-up, he continued. "Earth is the homeworld of the humanity of which I come from. And until but a few moments ago, what I believed to be the birthplace of all humanity."

The professor took another sip while reigning in his marginal skepticism. Spartan could very well be the victim of rather extreme and detailed delusions, of course, but he was giving him the benefit of the doubt in all this. Still, the young man had stated he had some involvement with a known settlement to the south; perhaps someone from there would have more information with which to collate and give credence to Spartan's claims.

"Though it may be rather obvious, for the record, as a soldier you have seen active duty?"

"I have, though I am not at liberty to disclose much on that."

"Hmmm..." And another sip was taken. "What can you say then about your service? I would imagine it would have something to do with you ending up on Remnant."

Six thought about that for a moment. Some things were still too fresh and personal to speak of but an overview could be given.

"Again, while there is much I am not at liberty to say, I can tell you that from a rather young age I - and many others - were trained to be become what you see. An equalizer. A weapon. The tip of the spear against an enemy that knows no mercy and has only one goal; our total and complete annihilation."

While the revelation that he was conversing with someone who - either believed or - was a child soldier was a bit saddening, the closing of Spartan's statement resonated with the Huntsman within him, if not helped to explain the need for what Ozpin would otherwise deem an atrocity. In a sense, Spartan was a Huntsman already and had apparently been one for some time.

Further comparisons and internal dissection of the young man's words were stalled as he continued.

"I was... in a battle, a battle in hindsight that was truly already lost but one I was not willing to concede. I managed to take down a few of the enemies' number before stumbling upon, and being trapped within, a bunker that housed some experimental technology. While I didn't know the specifics of what I was looking at, I did know what it was theoretically designed to do. It was in the attempted use of this technology that I ended up here. Whether it was designed to bring me here or it was the result of some malfunction, I can only speculate."

Six had worded his statement to try and guide the professor to his next question.

"And this technology, would it have left behind some sort of evidence of its passage?"

"I would say so." The Spartan recalled the nice hole in the canopy his arrival on Remnant caused. "The technology - the Pod I arrived in - was mostly intact. I would be willing to lead the way back to it for its retrieval, that is of course if its study is left to individuals that I have vetted."

Six made his offer. He realized he could very well be damning Remnant. He knew that and yet he still couldn't let go. His loyalty ultimately lay with the UNSC; it had given him everything. Purpose. Means. And provided the avenue to get back at those alien bastards who time and again had taken EVERYTHING from him.

And, he rationalized conversely, it wasn't as if he WAS dooming the people of Remnant. Who's to say, some years from now, they wouldn't develop the technology anyway? Although Six wasn't knowledgeable of the specifics - only what he'd remembered from the academy - there were a lot of accidents in the trials of creating what became the first Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine and many of those were because, frankly, the eggheads had little idea what they were doing; something lost in translation from mere calculations on a touch screen to attempting it in an actual physical test.

This way, he'd be providing a sort of roadmap; a working example. The Spartan internally frowned at that; so the Pod wasn't exactly WORKING per say, but there was a chance the technology within it could be replicated by merely looking at the burnt out sections.

Spartan B312 wasn't blind. Though he didn't want to admit it to himself he knew his new plan hinged on extremely slim odds that, if successful, would involve as of yet unaccounted variables. If it fell through, that would mean having to accept his part in the war was over; a weapon cast aside.

But he had to try.

His deluge of thought came to an end as Six once again focused on the headmaster, who had raised a brow before taking another sip from his mug. Just how much coffee was in that mug?

"If it is able to be recovered, I would be willing to consider it as part of your personal property and therefore be deigned off limits under my purview of Headmaster of Beacon Academy..." He swirled his cup in hand. "But I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. If you don't mind, I have two more questions."

Left unsaid, Six noted, was that if it such a consideration was made under the purview, and thus protection in extension of, the headmaster of Beacon then the Spartan himself would have to attach himself in some manner to Beacon as well. Being a student again didn't exactly appeal to him; he felt he'd learned all he needed to in the field he'd dedicated his all to. That and, if Ruby was an example of huntresses in training were to go by, he didn't know if he could mix very well with them.

She was physically capable, of that there was no doubt, but she wall also exceedingly naive and either unwilling or unable to commit herself to do all that was necessary to see a threat handled.

But if it meant moving forward with his plan, he would do it.

Despite his inner thoughts, the Spartan merely nodded.

"If I am wrong, I hope you take no offense." He started. "In any case, as a prospective student of Beacon, the record must be set, especially in light of what you've already said." He took another sip. "You have said that 'you were one of many' and that you were 'a weapon'. Your surname is... well, it is very strange. I am not the only one who thought so. Miss Rose and Miss Goodwitch, though they went about it in various ways, expressed a belief that I myself espouse. In short, I must ask: is Spartan Beethreeonetwo truly your name?"

Well, Six thought, it's not as if I didn't see this coming.

He could just say that it was because, in a sense, it very much was. 'He' died and in his place Spartan B312 was born. Of course, officially, it is just a designation. However, the headmaster would have no way of knowing that if he insisted that it was so.

Still, Six had decided earlier when he'd removed his helmet earlier to be honest with this man while within the limits of remaining loyal to the UNSC. In other words, so long as it wasn't classified or sensitive information, he could give an honest response.

In his tenure among the UNSC, he had several aliases and designations. The first of those, however, was what he'd been known as the longest. It was given to him due to his predilection of going solo, even back in his training days. Or rather, it was the shorthand version of that monicker that stuck as names went. Oddly enough, he hadn't given it much thought since he'd been tasked to Noble Team.

In any case, before he was 'Noble Six', he was-

"Wolf." Six replied.

"Wolf... is your surname? Or your given name?" Ozpin took another sip as he sought clarification.

"Just Wolf. As you surmised, Spartan B312 is my designation. As I said, I was one of many; the three hundred and twelfth Spartan of Bravo Company." Wolf obviously wasn't going to discuss the SPARTAN III Program if asked, however.

"Freedom of expression is taken rather seriously here on Remnant. Even still, I will need a surname for the sake of records." Not only that, but it would serve to humanize the young man." Ah, and a date of birth while I'm at it."

"Spartan B312, Wolf, both are one in the same." To Six, it didn't really matter; it was like calling a knife a blade or a stabbing implement. What you called it didn't change what it was, what it did or what is was made for.

The surprise second question however, made him think on how to respond. Six remembered when 'he' was born but it was certainly before 'Wolf' was born. Still, he rationalized, even if he turned away from 'him' it was 'his' year of birth that allowed his admittance to what would be the SPARTAN III program and it was 'his' date of birth that was listed in his official records. So, denial of his former self aside, he gave the factual answer.

"I don't recall the precise date, but the year was 2533." He realized he was receiving a bit of a blank look from the headmaster, so he clarified. "I am nineteen."

"Very well then." He went to go for another sip but found his mug, tragically, empty. "Spartan Wolf it is then." Ozpin was slightly uncomfortable having to decide the young man's name for him, but it was a far less conspicuous name than the former.

Setting down the porcellain cup, he made to ask his final question.

"Knowing a bit more about you now hasn't changed my desire to see you amongst my students. I feel there is a lot to learn and the knowledge could go both ways."

Ozpin knew many of the hopeful Huntresses and Huntsmen came in wide-eyed and full of idealism; idealism that, unfortunately, must be tested against the riggors of reality. While he was hardly one to want to crush that aspects of his students, he did wish for them to find a balance.

Spartan, however, he felt was in need of the opposite. He seemed rather driven yet somewhat jaded. His analogy of a overly sharpened sword being brittle was indeed what he saw when he looked at the young man before him; his was not an expression that be seen on one so young.

Standing up from his seat and walking around his table, cane in hand tapping against the floor as he stepped along, the professor made to stand in front of his desk before the comparitively larger teenager.

"Regarding my original offer; are you willing to accept?"

He had considered modifying his proposal, having him work alongside Glynda to teach some of what he learned in his time as a soldier, but thought against it for the time being. Why a student was assisting a teacher would bring questions and there would already be plenty of questions about Spartan as it is.

Wolf thought about it.

If his plan to get into contact with the UNSC before he was old and gray (well, grayer), he would need to get the Pod studied and Slipspace technology to be developed. The longer the Pod stayed out there, the longer it risked discovery and even if he knew he could lift the Pod, carrying it was another thing entirely. Also, he was no researcher and or techie; that was Kat's forte.

No, there was only one way about this and honestly he wasn't that opposed to it. Recalling the plethora of information offered in her spout of verbal diarhea, Ruby had espoused what Huntsment did. It really was similar to what he was trained to do already except instead of putting down creatures that possessed differing levels of intelligence, he'd be putting down animal abominations.

The only downside, again, was the company he'd be keeping. He knew military, not civilian. It would be a very rocky adjustment. But that's just what he'd have to do.

Coming to his conclusion, Wolf offered his right hand to the Headmaster.

"When do I start?" He spoke with the tiniest of grins.

Ozpin just smiled in that enigmatic way before meeting Six's hand and giving it a shake.

"Soon enough, Spartan. Welcome to Beacon."

* * *

 **Eesh, it even hurts me to not have any blood letting... but it had to be done. I'll try to make these sorts of chapters as few and far between as possible, but sometimes there will be no avoiding it.**

 **Anyway, now for that question. I reiterate, I hate to have to ask this, but I am totally out of ideas for a name with either Spartan or Wolf being included in a Team name.**

 **Remember, he'll be taking Jaune's place, so yeah.**

 **So, either send me a PM or drop it in a review. If I like it, you'll get credited accordingly in the summary of the next Chapter.**

 **No, this doesn't mean Wolf and Pyrrha will be an item, though. It also doesn't mean that it DOESN'T.**

 **And about the next Chapter; it may be a week before it's out. Right now, I've gotten to where things end in my notes (and my outline looks like the skeleton of a fish picked clean by a cat) so, yeah, I will be needing to fill in the details between the major events.**

 **Oh, and to head off any complaints: Wolf IS a shade of gray. Spartan IS a shade of red. I have not broken the color rule.**

 **In any case, thanks for reading! You guys are awesome!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay people, sorry for the delay but I had some unexpected life issues come up this last week. I know I promised action this time, and there would have been, had what I'd written been not so damn long. So, I've broken up what would've been a rather extensive singular Chapter into two. The second of which will be coming out tomorrow or Tuesday (I still have editing and fine tuning of events to go through with the latter half).**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

As the Headmaster and Six shook hands, a curious expression broke through Ozpin's typically unreadable visage.

"Odd." The professor began. "I'm not feeling much Aura from you."

As their hands fell to their respective sides, the head of Beacon Academy began moving off to the side of the spacious room where a mahogany waist height table was set against one of the few opaque walls. Upon it was coffee carafe, maker and grinder.

Six just raised a brow.

" 'Aura' ?"

The Headmaster, having reached the table, lifted the carafe and began pouring himself a fresh cup.

"You were not trained in the use of Aura as a soldier?" Without even turning around, Six could hear the slight perplexion in his tone. His hands did not stop moving however, as he set the carafe back down and retrieved a few packets of what Six assumed was sugar.

While now stirring his steaming cup of joe, Ozpin turned back around to regard the young man, noting his slightly blank expression.

"Aura; the physical manifestation of one's soul?" He continued watching the lad while he brought his cup to his lips, blowing on the whisps of heat before taking a sip.

Six was a bit skeptical about the line of questioning but answered anyway.

"No, I haven't been."

"Curious. In the video of you on the bridge, you were moving at a very rapid rate." He paused taking another sip of the nectar of the gods. "You reached the site of the altercation in under twelve seconds. That was a distance of four city blocks - six, if you count the route you took that was sidelong."

He paused again, not taking a sip this time as he leaned on his cane slightly.

"Is everyone from..." He searched his memory of the conversation and revelations of before. "... Earth so naturally gifted?"

"No, not naturally." Though Wolf wasn't from Earth, that wasn't the point of the question. "My speed can be attributed to my training as a Spartan." In so much that going under the knife and being pumped full of body augmenting chemicals can be considered part of a Spartan's training. "Beyond that I am not at liberty to say."

"I see..." The Headmaster really didn't, but he was willing to let it slide. Not knowing of Aura had raised other questions.

"I would assume you would not be at liberty to speak on your armor?" He took another sip. The professor assumed that it was the armor that made up the difference in physical ability.

He was only half right.

"That would be correct."

Six thought a moment. From Ozpin's questioning, he postulated that Aura had to have some connection with enhanced physical capability.

"Regarding Aura," Wolf began. "Is this something that the students in this academy are taught to use?"

While Six was indeed skeptical about the notion of 'manifesting one's soul' as the Headmaster had put it, he had heard of terms such as ki, chi and such that those strongly devoted to martial arts seemed to put a bit of stock in, so he wouldn't be so dismissive outright.

Ozpin just smiled.

"Well, the students here are typically already rather well versed in its usage. Moreover, they usually have their Auras unlocked by family members long before they arrive here."

"This," The professor paused once more, taking another sip of slightly bitter brew before flaring his own Aura in a flash of nigh neon green wisps of energy that surrounded his body, radiating off of him like the steam of the coffee in the cup in his hand. " is Aura."

He then let it fade with a slightly bemused expression on his face as Six was unable to keep his brows from raising ever so slightly.

"Aura is used in several different ways." He gestured with his cane at his desk where upon the communication device was still replaying the skirmish Ruby and Six had taken part in. As if timed perfectly, from what Six could see of the display, it showed Ruby moving about in that rather jarringly quick fashion as she laid out several black suited men.

"From enhancing one's own inner strength and moving more quickly than would otherwise be possible - present company excluded - to using it as a shield to defend one's self from harm, Aura is of great importance to a Huntsman."

Six thought on what the Headmaster was saying and another thing came to his mind.

"So, Ms. Goodwitch then..." He started only to have the Headmaster continue.

"Ms. Goodwitch used her Semblence when she brought you and Ms. Rose here." The professor brought his cup up for another sip as he headed back to desk and the comfy chair awaiting him. "And Semblence is a more tangible projection of one's Aura. It is, more often than not, unique to each individual as it is the manifestation of one's innate personal power and ability."

This was getting somewhat irksome to Six; on the one hand, if what the professor was saying was true, the caped blondy didn't have a gravity manipulating riding crop but on the other hand she was using the crop as some sort of... focus for an ability she was born with? Or that Aura provided?

He didn't know which he'd rather prefer to be true now; micro anti gravity generators or people that had what seemed to be super powers.

"And how commonspread is the use of Aura? Back in my brief passage through Arca Spina, I didn't notice anyone emit any glow or other pecularities."

"Well, those that use or call upon Aura most often are Huntsmen or Huntresses. It is likely there were none in that small settlement. In any case, any who possess a soul also has Aura." The Headmaster said, sitting down while laying his cane back across his lap. "But that brings me back to my initial thought: I wasn't feeling much Aura from you." He seemed to think a moment while swirling the liquid in his mug.

"Or rather, I should say that what I felt of it was rather subdued."

"Subdued?"

"That was my impression of it." He brought the brown ambrosia to his lips once more. "It isn't something that is without precident, but it is rather rare; either one's Aura is dormant, waiting beneath the surface or activated in full."

The professor hummed a bit.

The more Six heard about Aura, the more he realized how much a boon in combat potential it would be - how much a better soldier it would make him.

"You said that families are the ones who activate their own members' Auras - is it religated to only that or are there other ways?"

"Families are the typical route, yes, but it isn't unheard of for those not hailing from Huntsmen lines who answer the call to take up arms against humanity's enemies. In such cases, they find someone they can trust with an already active Aura that agrees to awaken it for them - it is a rather personal experience, after all, it is the touching of souls. There must be trust on both ends, you see." He took another sip.

"The final route, and far least travelled, is the activation through rigorous training, which is why I believe yours is partially active now; it very well could've become fully active but as I said -"

"It feels 'subdued'." Six proferred.

"Yes." Ozpin took yet another sip of coffee.

"And this, for lack of a better term, interference - would you know a way of bypassing it or working through it?"

"It isn't truly something I've committed to studying, but I could look into it." The professor nodded lazily. "Seeing as you were unfamiliar with Aura, what do you know of Dust?"

" 'Dust' ? " Six was clearly lost, if not evidenced by the expression on his face but by his flat reply.

"Hmm... those weapons you have - what propels their ammunition?"

Six thought quickly; perhaps 'dust' is what they call-

"Gunpowder. For my rifle's ammo, anyway. High explosive mix for my grenades." Well, most of his grenades - he had no idea what the makeup of a Plasma Grenade was.

The professor seemed to find amusement in the term 'powder' in Wolf's reply.

"Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe?" He chuckled slightly before taking another sip.

 _Seriously_ , Six thought, _how deep is that cup_?

"I couldn't tell you what the exact makeup of gunpowder nor the high explosives is - it's outside my field of expertise; all I know is that it is made up of numerous chemical compounds." Six elaborated.

The Headmaster raised a brow at that.

"It is not derived from Dust Crystals?" The professor sat his coffee cup down before pulling open a drawer in the desk he was seated at. He withdrew a small clear glass vial that had a snowflake-like emblem on it. Within the vial was a powdery red substance.

"This is Fire Dust, ground and purified from raw Fire Dust Crystals and used in some flame oriented munitions." Ozpin opined. "There are also other types of Dust with varying properties, but I digress."

Six merely raised a brow slightly.

"The gunpowder that fills ammunition I'm familar with is either gray, olive brown or dark gray, made up of several different component substances and acts purely in an explosive manner."

"Curious..." The professor replaced the vial in his desk. "I have to wonder at the compatabillity of your arms with what we use here on Remnant."

Six was now concerned about the same thing, but before he could voice that, the Headmaster cut into his thoughts.

"But, I'm sure our Forgemaster could come up with something. She's has been known to further refine some varieties of Dust for our students as well as herself. She's a tad..." He tapped his lip for a moment before ceasing and retriving his mug. "... abrasive, but she knows her craft. She could be able to assist you in rearming yourself when the time comes."

Six felt his growing concern subside a bit before another question was begging to be asked.

"About that. As I am... not from around here, how will I handle things requiring currency? During my time in service to the UNSC, everything needed was provided."

Wolf wasn't looking for a hand-out, more along the lines of finding some form of income for living expenses while on this odd planet. After all, he had no history or documentation here - he couldn't imagine it would be easy to go and try to find a legitimate place of work; not that he even knew how to do much else other than kill and survive on the battlefield.

Seeing as Remnant wasn't even a rogue colony, he could see that his Credits wouldn't be passable for trade, either.

"Well, Spartan, you're in luck; having accepted my offer, your needs will be provided for the duration of your enrollment; not all Huntsmen-to-be come here from well off families but because they are training to provide a critical service for all of humanity in the protection from threats within and without, they are granted allocated subsidies by the kingdom's government." The spectacled man slurped his java once more.

"The stipend covers enrollment and a certain amount is put forward to the arming or rearming the students who require it on a monthly basis." The professor lowered his mug to his lap, holding it between both hands. "After your time here comes to an end, however, well... well, by then you'll have more of a paper trail and, should you choose to continue to live the life of the Huntsmen, you will find no shortage of missions to be dispatched upon. Missions which you will recieve payment upon completion of." The light gray haired man smiled, taking another sip of his preferred stimulant. "I can garauntee that."

Six watched the man carefully even as he went over his words. He found no point of contention or hint of deception in either his verbal or body language when he made his assertions and assurances.

And thinking back on the Pod, Wolf wasn't deluded by hope enough to believe its study and dissection would bear fruit within a timeframe of less than a decade.

Therefore, seeing his present and near future was practically secure and accounted for, he could only give a firm nod to the Headmaster's words.

"That sounds more than agreeable."

"Splendid!" The bespectacled man went to take a sip again but grimaced slightly, finding his cup empty once more. He retrieved his communications device from the table before seemingly remembering something. He exited the videos that were still playing - apparently on repeat - and swiped through some more menus before tapping on the onscreen keypad that appeared.

"Just one moment before I send you on your way." The professor began as his fingers came to a halt on the screen. "Even with me vouching for you, your stipend won't be cleared for at least a day's time but you can still head down and visit our Forgemaster to have her take a look at some of your ammunition." The Headmaster looked up from his handheld device. "You do have enough to spare inspection, do you not?"

Wolf nodded; checking his Weapon Management Display, he confirmed he had 105 7.62mm rounds, 16 40mm grenades (as well as 1 Frag and 2 Plasma Grenades) remaining so he could definitely spare some for examination and potential replication.

Just after the Spartan's confirmation, the seated head of Beacon was about to reply when his device went off; he swiped the screen, giving a quick once over before looking back up with an easy grin once more.

"Well, she's awaiting your arrival - ah, and her name is Herrin Rost. I've sent word ahead to have her dispense unto you an Academy Scroll," The bespectacled man said while gesturing the device he held by tapping on it on its outer side. "while you are there. Ms. Goodwitch will guide you there."

As Six was dawning his helmet once more while turning away from the Headmaster, the door to the office opened, revealing the ever stoney-faced golden bun haired woman.

"Glynda, if you would." Six's tracker depicted the Headmaster rising from his seat again - apparently heading back to the coffee laden table.

Spartan B312 headed for the door, the so-named Ms. Goodwitch stepping aside to allow his large frame passage before shutting the door behind them.

* * *

The glasses clad woman had led Wolf down and out of the tower to an adjacent three storied rectangular building, fashioned of the same dull gray stone as the rest of the structures on the campus. As Six followed his silent guide, he noted the presence of several squat chimneys upon the nearing building's roof, one of which was belching out a thin trail of blackish haze.

Entering the building through a set of somewhat plain steel double doors, Ms. Goodwitch walked forth down what the Spartan considered the main hall of the structure into the inner recesses of the building. He idly noted there had been two other paths branching from the entryway - one to the left and to the right of the hallway he was being marched down at the moment.

Coming upon a large open doorway set in a wall at the end of the hall, Ms. Goodwitch came to a stop and Wolf noticed her nose wrinkling slightly. Though his helmet was doing a fine job of filtering it, he could smell a bit of an acrid smokey odor hanging about the room beyond.

Beyond said doorway, from what Six could tell, appeared to be a workshop of sorts beyond a large metal counter; to the sides and above the counter were numerous steel bars and chained link fencing criss-crossing around the medium-sized 'window' the counter was situated upon. The arrangement of bars and fencing was somewhat reminiscent of a spider's web - if they spun steel rather than silk. Off to the right was a heavy steel door, nearly black with caked soot.

"Herrin!" The blond called, her fingers now pinching her nose shut, but not enough to distort her voice.

There was a bit of a small muffled explosion beyond the artistic metalwork that Six assumed made for security around the service window, but other than that, no response.

Wolf noticed his blonde guide's left eyebrow twitch.

"HERRIN!"

"Alright, alright!"

A rather short woman - shorter than Ruby by at least a foot - stumbled out. Six couldn't guess at her age due to her height. Her shoulder length light brown hair was a bit poofed up and she was in the process of working it back into a loose ponytail tied with what looked to be a... gear? There was a bit of soot on her tanned skin. She was wearing a heavy green smock with a black sleeveless shirt but beyond that, Six couldn't tell as it was blocked by her diminutive stature not being observable below the counter.

Until she stepped up with a dull CLANK on what Wolf figured was a metal footstool concealed behind the counter. She was apparently wearing tattered blue jeans.

The small woman, placed her hands on the counter and stared at first the bespectacled blonde with her dark brown eyes, then Six, then back at the blonde.

"WHAT?" She returned at the same decibel as Glynda's previous beseechment.

The caped instructor's eye twitched again while the smaller woman - Ms. Rost just smiled a bit petulantly.

"This is Mr. Wolf." Ms. Goodwitch began. "He will be-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got the memo Glynda." The smaller woman interrupted. She looked in Six's direction before continuing.

"The walking suit of armor's got some," At this point, Rost lifted her hands up to either side of her head, performing air quotes while looking back at the blonde. " 'unique Dust combinations' for me to examine." She then placed her hands back, palms flat on the table with a rather bored expression falling over her face, her eyes swivelling back to Wolf.

"And you better; I was right in the middle of an experiment."

Six just remained silent as Goodwitch spoke up again.

"Not only that, but you were supposed to prepare a spare Scroll for his usage."

"Right. And that." Rost replied, her lips dipping at the corners in a frown to which Glynda's expression seemed to lighten if only slightly - she clearly wasn't enjoying the odor of this particular location.

"Yes, that." The blonde turned to Six. "When you are done here, use the Scroll you will be provided to locate the main hall - there will be a gathering of arriving students for the sake of orientation taking place there at 11:30 sharp. Do not be late."

Wolf nodded as Goodwitch made her departure, back the way they came; her motion tracker return getting farther and farther away while the remaining brown haired woman eyed the Spartan's helmeted face dispassionately.

Six brought his left hand up to the hidden slideaway compartment on the lower portion of his MJOLNIR's chestplate to quickly withdraw a whole magazine of 7.62 mm rounds as the diminutive woman cocked a brow - some life coloring her face once more - before he sat it on the counter. He then retrieved two 40 mm pipe grenades from his bandolier, setting them next to the magazine.

The woman put her black fingerless glove covered hands on the magazine before ejecting a single round from within onto the countertop.

"Well, these appear to be a rather customized caliber for starters." She began, her voice getting a touch serious as the blood of a weaponsmith began asserting itself.

Her chocolate eyes falling on the grenade round. "These two, but they are slightly larger than the standard launching set."

"I'm going to need to see you fire at least one of each of these off to see what they're capable of." She said as she pressed the ejected round back into the clip and passed it back to Six which he stowed back into his sliding chest compartment; the grenades, however, she plucked off the counter and took with her as she stepped down from the footstool at the counter and proceeded out of sight beyond the open sections of the spiderweb like steel gratings.

The sound of the blackened metal door unlocking and opening  
precipitated the small woman, who Six now estimated was four and a half feet tall, as she stuck her head through.

"Come on, iron giant, I haven't got all day."

Six followed the woman back behind the security door into the workshop. If Wolf was pressed to briefly describe the state of affairs behind the counter, he would have to say it was ordered chaos; there were shelves upon shelves of crates and boxes containing odds and ends, several varieties of metal ingots stacked in pyramidal arrangements, all sorts of gears, nuts, screws and such in a system only the dweller of the domain could likely navigate.

Still, the rows between shelves were clear and wide enough for him to move through, so that was a plus.

Past the shelves, as Six looked around, opened up a bit; the stone roof could be seen from where he was, showing that the three stories did not necessarily contain three individual floors all the way through. Grime coated windows were interspaced on the far wall above what appeared to be a target range. The one he was approaching was for lighter munitions, judging from it having a paper target shaped like the sillouette of an upright Beowolf with some sort of bullet impact dimpled device behind it.

"Okay tall, dark and quiet, aim at Mr. Fuzzbutt," Rost gestured to the paper target while withdrawing a Scroll from a central pocket on her smock. "and make him eat what you're cooking; rifle only."

Six just withdrew his DMR, sighted on the faux beastie's head and fired - all in the blink of an eye.

Rost brows rose again at that rapid motion gun slinging before looking down at her data device and whistling at the results.

"Those suckers pack a whallop!" She started, before gesturing so another target with a set up a few rows down that had sand bagging around it. The target was a another sillouette of a Grimm he hadn't seen before in the shape of a scorpion; it was painted on flat metallic disc which was laid flat on the ground, seemingly made of the same material behind the target he just shot.

"Head on over there and drop one on Mr. Pokey. Try to center the explosion in the middle of it." The Forgemaster spoke as she moved behind a section of a thick steel bordered, clear plastic wall that was nearby the explosives range while Six moved over to the designated lane, stowing his DMR.

Wolf unslung his Independent Grenade Launcher, his HUD's cross hairs sighted on the indicated target as he levelled it and he fired while keeping the trigger depressed. As soon as the pipe grenade struck the center, Six released the trigger and it exploded.

The sound of ringing metal and a whooping Forgemaster filled the otherwise silent workshop as the small woman headed back over to Six, who had just reloaded a fresh 40 mm into the IGL, stowed it, retrieved his DMR and removed the clip.

"Well," Rost started, accepting the proferred clip and looking at it before sliding it into her smock's pouch, she then looked at her Scroll's screen then back up at the visor of the student who now off her shit-list for prior interruptions, seeing her own slightly distorted toothy grin reflected back at herself. "You've certainly got my attention, Big Guy. The Headmaster says you're going to want me to try and come up with a facsimile of these, s'that right?"

Six just nodded.

"Don't talk much do you? Anyway, I'll see what I can do - from what I saw of the rounds for that rifle of yours, I may already have something in the works matching that level of propellent. The grenades though may be a bit more tricky." She said, scratching the bridge of her nose with her free hand.

"I could recalibrate the casings for the auto-loader for the size of the round, same as how I'll have to do for your rifle rounds, but as for that remote activated detonators as well that non-elemental explosion with such a yield, it'll take a bit longer to put together."

Six was impressed she was able to tell it was a slightly delayed explosion but wrote it off as either experience in her field or the sensors in that plate could pick up the signal sent to the charge in the grenade.

"Still," She went on. "I could pop out some incendiary impact grenades to tie you over in the meantime. How's that sound?"

"Sounds good." Six nodded.

"Well, whaddya know? He speaks! Alright just one more thing before I can get ya outta my hair and get back down to work. Come on, Big Guy." She turned away and gestured with her hand over her shoulder as she headed back to the counter top that was the front of the Forge. "Back outside with ya." She waved him to the door.

Six exited through the door, which shut and locked behind him, and went around to the opposite side of the counter where beyond it Rost was bent over to the side, pulling open a metal drawer and fishing out an item from within. Having found it, she kicked the drawer shut and plopped the item down on the counter - it was a white colored version of the Scrolls that seemed to function as data pads here on Remnant.

"Tell me I won't have to tell you how to work this thing?" She half-pleaded, half-demanded as Six went to grab the scroll. He had watched Ozpin and Goodwitch operate theirs so he had the basic idea - and he did, as he pressed the little orange diamond to activate it before grabbing each side, seperating them and folding out a semi-solid gel like screen that locked in place after pulling the sides a set distance; a rather interesting material, Wolf mused.

"I'll manage." Six replied has he swiped over the various menus before finding what he was looking for - a map of Beacon with his present location blinking on the screen. It displayed a simplified polygonal overview of the buildings with their labels on each structure; he located the Main Hall quickly enough.

"Good. Check back with me tomorrow and I'll have some of those grenades ready; they'll just require simple tweaking of the auto-loader." She gave a wave before heading back off beyond the counter and into the workshop.

Wolf just internally shrugged while slapping a fresh clip into his DMR before stowing it, realizing he'd have to be even more conservative with his rifle rounds now that he was down a mag. Looking back down at the handheld device, noting it was only 10:59 AM according to the Scroll. As his armor's systems automatically adjusted their internal clock by way of subliminal command via his neural lace, he figured he had nowhere else to be.

Six deigned to explore the campus at a later time as he headed for the Main Hall.

* * *

 **XX**

 **Alright, that's it for this one.**

 **I'm still thinking on the Team names people have submitted either through reviews or PMs and have singled out a few which have been suggested by multiple people as well as some that stood out to me. Haven't settled on one just yet, but the list is narrowing.**

 **Thanks for reading and look forward to the next Chapter within the next two days, where things will start getting heated up!**


	7. Chapter 7

**As promised, here's that chapter.**

 **It's a lot longer than the last, so technically it isn't merely 'half'.**

 **Still, it was going to be even longer than this so I had to cut it again.**

 **Calm yourselves, there's still a bit of action in this that delivers on the promise of things heating up.**

 **Also, more of Six's past is revealed.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

As Spartan B312 gazed upon the large and ornate circular building that was identified as the Main Hall, he couldn't help but scrutinize its defensibility; the numerous tall, nearly ground level windows and copious, rather ostentatious yet artistic inlays of curving black stone didn't sell it as being very durable.

Still, as the Spartan passed through the open great wooden double doors, he figured its appearance may be deceiving; perhaps functionality hidden beneath a veneer of beauty.

The Main Hall was apparently an open air affair - lacking a ceiling (adding another point against it in Six's books) - and had almost an inner cathedral like appearance; the far wall boasting an overly elaborate and detailed design with four smaller circular windows inset high up and small spires above them, as well to either side.

Beneath that was a stage that extended a bit into the hall from its curve with stairs to the far left and right sides leading up to it.

There was also a second floor with a short ledge around its inner circumference, behind which were stands that at the moment were empty.

Aside from the noteworthy architecture, there was barely anything else that caught Six's attention; though there were some students in small groups or standing alone here and there, none of them really caught his eye - though he did note their positions.

Six turned and proceeded left after entering the hall, heading to a position that would have his back to the wall and grant him view of the entrance to one side, the stage to the other and the floor at large in between.

Leaning back against the wall, Six crossed his arms as he fell into his thoughts, pouring over them at a much more sedate rate.

He had come to some rather disquieting revelations since he first entered the city of Vale; many of his prior plans and presumptions had been thrown out and sundered and, just as he was now literally with his six to a hard place, so too was he metaphorically cornered.

Still, as always, things could be worse; he could've been disbelieved by the Headmaster or could've been attacked in a fit of xenophobia - he really didn't like his chances of fighting his way out of that tower with what he now knew of Aura and Semblence; Goodwitch had apparently been outside the door during most of the meeting and with her apparent gravity manipulating ability combined with whatever the coffee guzzler could throw his way, it could've gotten really hairy.

Still, while most of machinations had gone the way of the dodo, he was not without his current path.

And then there were those videos of himself and Ruby; he hadn't thought of it since his discourse with Ozpin, but now that he was free to mull things over he remembered how quickly the footage was compiled and made available - and more importantly, he remembered his estimations of how that was possible; an AI.

Wolf knew even with his wonky neural lace acting as a bridge between himself and his armor, the MJOLNIR was not functioning at maximum capacity; there were some feats that could only be accomplished with of the presence of an AI - preferrably, a Smart AI, though even a 'dumb' AI would suffice to bolster a notable increase in capability.

He decided that if it existed, which he felt was a very big and likely 'if', acquiring this AI would be one of his ancillary goals. The presence of Aura and Semblence closed a gap in raw power and potential that Six wasn't previously aware he was concerned with.

As a Spartan, he was made to be the best; he'd gone through hellish training and painful augmentations to get where he is now. But Aura changed things.

How could Six remain the tip of the spear if the haft was not behind him, but beside him?

In short, he needed to regain his edge in combat superiority; he had to remain as lethal a weapon as possible. Only the sharpest knife could hope to slit so many Covenant throats, after all... even if there were none of them here at present.

But he was digressing.

Acquiring the AI that seemed to manage the CCTS network was far easier said than done.

First, he needed to confirm its existence; Remnant being a natural birthplace of humanity was a consideration he had rejected until it was thrown in his face - its impossibility had been an assumption that he banked much on and lost plenty in doing so. Therefore, even though it seemed redundant, he had to make sure that there was indeed an AI involved in the CCTS's operation.

Second, he needed to learn of its physcial location; though Remnant's version of an AI could possibly be different, he would go on what he personally knew - thanks to him playing courier back on Reach, he was aware that AIs had a physical matrix; the CCTS Tower being the hub for the network meant that it was rather likely the AI was located there.

Wolf was convinced the Tower acted as the hub for the network due to the location of Vale in relation to the other large cities; Vale fell in roughly the middle of them all, and it would be impractical, if not infeasible, for the hub to be in Vacuo to the west, Atlas to the north or Mistral to the east. Being able to broadcast from Vacuo to Mistral without the CCTS Tower in Vale to act as a relay would likely be impossible due to distance.

Third, upon the AI's existence and whereabouts being confirmed, he needed access to it; this could be achieved in an either above or below board way. Either Six fostered a trustworthy relationship with the Headmaster - who had all but proven his own access to the AI by displaying the videos themselves - or Six inflitrated where the AI was physically located. Wolf was far more in favor on the former method as too much could be lost in attempting the latter.

Fourth, he'd have to verify that he could even link the AI to his systems; naturally, being plugged into his neural lace meant he'd be potentially putting a portion of his grey matter under its purview - not to mention the MJOLNIR itself, so upon confirming whether or not a connection could actually be established and assuming it could, he would have to carefully scrutinize the disposition of the AI itself; if it was some sort of military spec, he'd have to nix his plan then and there because his override wouldn't cut the mustard. On the other hand, if the AI was far more basic - or 'dumb' - its use would be limited but acceptable.

Being able to be tied into the CCTS's innerworkings would be a major tactical boon.

Finally, and most obviously, he needed to gain the AI's cooperation; either by way of permission from a figure of authority - the Headmaster, again - or by force. The first route was like the previous phase of the plan; foster enough trust and goodwill from the Headmaster then carefully make his case without actually innerworkings of the MJOLNIR armor - such as that it was possible for it to work with the addition of an AI and that he'd make a better, more efficient Huntsman in doing so. He had an idea how to broach the prospective conversation; it would center around him being curious of the CCTS and its operation.

Depending on how open the professor handled his responses, he could bring up the subject of AIs themselves playing important roles in numerous structures, networks and sectors in the UNSC - of course, without going into great detail, simply overviews. Then, he could go on to stating that as a Spartan, he was trained to work in conjunction with an AI, which was true; though few Spartans to his knowledge had been, or ever would be, given the opportunity to fully appreciate that state of synergy as only a handful remained that were not listed as MIA.

* * *

In another universe, aboard a certain pillar-shaped ship dropping out of Slipspace, a green armored Spartan who would dwarf Noble Six in height was just exiting a cryo tube when he suddenly sneezed.

"Need a blanket, sir?" A technician joked.

The tech was met with silence and a visor obscurred stare, one that could give Spartan-B312's a run for its money in the unnerving department.

* * *

Back on Remnant, Six was still running through the variables in pursuing his newest goal.

He'd covered the peaceful option of acquiring the CCTS's AI, now he had to address the potentially troublesome alternative.

The forceful option would require the use of the military override program in his armor to actually be effective on what was essentially an alien AI. He wasn't too optimistic about that, so if it came down to it, he'd have to time it for when - and if - it was disconnected from the network, such as undergoing maintainance and therefore unable to issue an alert of some sort in case the subourning attempt failed. If the CCTS had a maintainance schedule that civilians could view, he'd have to operate off of that.

If not, then that would mean engineering a situation that would call for the AI being temporarily disconnected and Six wasn't exactly sold that that would be worth it; crippling the CCTS just to acquire its AI would be like tossing a Frag in a munitions depot to sneak off with a single SPNKr Rocket Launcher.

As Wolf had been ruminating, more and more students began to pour into the hall. He only paid them cursory attention, noting their movements and body language for traces of hostility as well as their positions relative to his own.

Some, while taking in the auditorium around them had noticed him along the wall where the light of the sky above didn't quite reach and gave him a range of looks; from shock that they didn't notice the previous proverbial iron golem lurking in the shadows to cautious curiosity with continued quick glances his way.

As the Spartan kept his gaze cast upon the quickly filling hall, he idly noticed a familiar black-and-red clad figure entering, looking around, spotting a taller blonde girl and proceeding to follow her around while conversing before he lost sight of them in the growing crowd.

A few minutes later, Noble Six was shaken from his thoughts entirely as the sound of the Headmaster clearing his throat echoed within the now otherwise silent auditorium. He was on the stage in front of a standing microphone with Ms. Goodwitch standing behind him and to the side.

"I'll keep this brief." He began. "You've travelled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people."

The professor paused briefly, peering out among the gathered youth before him.

"But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

There was a short silence as he turned from the gathered students and walked away from the mic even as Glynda strode forward to take his place.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight." She spoke, her voice clear and not harboring the edge Six was accustomed to hearing. "Tomorrow your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed."

As the bespectacled blonde fell in line with the Headmaster in departing the stage, the volume of indiscernable voices picked up as the groupings of students began chatting while heading at different paces to the exit.

Prior to the impromptu exodus of teenagers, Wolf took note of one in particular as she backed up to the wall within a few feet from his position. Her long hair flowed down over her back in a ponytail like a crimson waterfall. Below a golden neckpiece were bare fair skinned shoulders and a brown leather corset with gold trim. An equally red sash and a black pouch laden belt were tied around her hips, barely concealing a black skirt. Upon her long legs were a pair gold armored black high heel boots. Back up on her arms were elbow length black gloves, the left arm was clad in more gold in the form of a bracelet about the bicep and a bracer on the forearm.

Oh, and she apparently had a gold crown wrapped around the back of her head that had some dangly bits of green jewelry.

Wolf was a bit flummoxed that he didn't notice this gold trimmed walking stop sign earlier as he turned his head to follow her attempt to disappear in the minimal shade provided by the jutting balcony above his position. Well, he presumed she was trying to disappear - that's what her body language read, anyway.

As the hall disgorged more than three quarters of the students who'd taken up its interior, his erstwhile wallmate began to lose the tension in her shoulders as she released a barely audible sigh.

As the girl's calm seemed to be returning to her and she took a few steps forward from the wall, a seldom nurtured and oft ignored sense of mischief rose within the Spartan.

He decided to entertain it. Leaning in slightly, he broke his silence.

"Not a fan of crowds?"

"AH!"

The girl whirled around with widened emerald green eyes as she was suddenly made aware of the seven foot tall black metal giant she had unknowingly been a few feet from.

"I, well, not exactly." She started, still somewhat uncomfortable, if her body language was anything to go by. She cleared her throat and her tension once more declined. "I just didn't expect there to be someone behind me... though I am a bit shocked I didn't notice you before."

Wolf just raised a brow; he didn't think he was that well hidden and he certainly didn't pick this particular spot in an attempt to conceal himself, only because of the view of the hall, stage and entrance it offered.

"Well, unless you have eyes hidden under that crown on the back of your head, I would imagine you wouldn't."

Seemingly realizing that she was in a situation of her own making, she chuckled somewhat uncomfortably.

"Ah, right." She wrung her right hand slightly.

Six was somewhat puzzled by her body language; on the one hand, she had the posture of someone with great confidence and yet the movement of her hand coupled with her fluctuating tone of voice diplayed a lack of comfortability holding a conversation.

Or maybe it was how the discourse was started? He did startle her after all.

The Spartan could read people but he was no psychologist. Still, it was almost like the girl was expecting some sort of reaction from him - if her anxiety was anything to go by.

He didn't want to have to deal with this but he could accept he was partially responsible for the current predicament.

To hell with it.

He took a step forward from the wall, uncrossing his arms as he did so and offered his left hand.

"Spartan Wolf."

The girl blinked; she looked at his visor as if trying to discern some universal mystery for a moment before returning the gesture with her own hand.

"Pyrrha Nikos." She said with a rather firm grasp, Six noted. As their hands fell back to their sides, the so-named Pyrra Nikos tilted her head somewhat with her brows somewhat raised in, again, some for of expectation.

A brief moment of silence, awkward even to the stalwart Wolf, passed.

"You..." She began. "You don't recognize me?"

There was some trace of hope in her voice.

Noble Six wasn't going to lie to her face to spare her feelings, however.

"No. Should I?" Inwardly, Six knew that would be highly unlikely - he'd only been on the planet two and a half days.

She blinked again, more tension fading and being replaced with a sense of curiosity - if the added degree to the tilt of her head was anything to go by.

"Well, yes. I mean, no. Well, I would rather you not but I don't typically have a choice in the matter."

The Spartan didn't know what she was talking about and was really beginning to regret his decision of letting his previous impulse go unchecked.

"You'd rather be unnoticed?" He offered the obvious.

"Yes... at times, anyway." She seemed to be growing a bit more relaxed whereas Six was only starting to grow more uncomfortable.

Even though his stint with Noble Team had been brief, he had hardly been known to shoot the breeze. Emile had once compared his conversational skills to that of a wall's and found lacking.

So, it would've come as little surprise to the few who knew Six when he opened his mouth and attempted to insert his giant booted foot.

"All that red and gold must make that rather difficult."

Well, if it had been said to anyone else, Six may have been tasting what he tread on for the last few hours but apparently Ms. Nikos wasn't of the typical ilk.

"Ah, you may be right." She said somewhat sheepishly with a small grin, as if only now realizing how eye catching her semi-greek attire and rather loud colors were. Or at least, that last bit is what Six thought may have been going through her head.

She looked up again, her eyes still displaying some modicum of caution.

"You really don't recognize me?"

"I'm afraid not." Six repeated his denial, growing ever more weary of this non-conversation.

"I see... that is a relief." She finally seemed to lose her remaining tension.

"So, Spartan," She began anew, "the woman on the stage mentioned needing to gather in the ballroom later in the evening. I haven't really had a chance to familarize myself with the campus after getting off the Bullhead. Would you happen to know the way?"

Stepping away further from the wall himself, the Spartan keyed his left thigh compartment where he kept his three ration bars and Scroll.

"No." He started, withdrawing the communication device as he began walking for the exit. "However, I would imagine it would be shown on the map of the campus."

As Six passed her, Pyrrha turned and began walking alongside him. His stride being longer than hers, she had to quicken her own pace ever-so-slightly.

"Ah, yeah it would, wouldn't it?" It wasn't that she didn't know that, moreover that she felt she may be more unapproachable if she was already walking with someone.

Especially the rather robust metal clad someone next to her.

As they exited the hall in a not completely uneasy silence, Six flicked through to the map on his Scroll. He panned out a bit with a movement of his thumb and forefinger while running his eyes over the display briefly before finding what he was looking for.

They rounded the outside of the Main Hall (or as the map also listed it, the Amphitheater) and came into view of the CCTS tower and the academy's main building sprawled to either side of it.

"The ballroom is adjacent the Lecture Halls," He said, replacing the Scroll back into his thigh compartment with his left hand while gesturing with his right. "which are located there." He pointed out the leftmost portion of the main building.

As they neared the rather impressive base of the tower that served as entrance to the academy building, Six noted they were drawing a quite a bit of attention. It wasn't lost that although he was earning his fair share of looks, the lion's share were being directed to the redhead beside him.

She, too, seemed to be aware of the eyes on her but seemed to be ignoring it with a practiced ease.

"So," She broke the momentary silence, "Where are you from Spartan?"

Six considered the question; it was no great thing to ponder, really, but he'd been playing things rather close to the vest since arriving on Remnant. Only recently did he lower his gaurd somewhat with the Headmaster; should he do so again or keep his walls up fully?

Wolf's eyes swept to their corners to regard the girl beside him. She was one of many who he would be fighting alongside, according to the Headmaster. Some trust was always due to comrades.

Still, he wouldn't go right off and say 'I'm a space alien.'. As socially stunted as the Spartan was, even he knew that would probably be a faux pas.

However, he was still a bit torn how to answer that question; for all intents and purposes, 'Wolf' was born on Onyx and therefore the truth. That information, however, was married to the SPARTAN III Program and therefore classified. He could answer her question as such but that would potentially drive a wedge in between a propsective comrade and himself.

On the other hand, there was another answer that was both true and not-as-classified. The place of 'his' birth was on file and a known quantity to anyone who heard the name.

So, Six gave the less palatable yet least treasonous truth.

"Charybdis IX."

Pyrrha blinked at that, pursing her lips slightly.

"Charybdis Nine?" She spoke as if repeating the word would grant some revelation unto her. "I am not familiar with that... town?"

"It was a bit larger than a town, if memory serves correctly."

A bit larger indeed, Six thought while grimacing slightly.

Pyrrha was about to ask more before his words registered in her mind: 'It _was_ a bit larger than a town.' Her eyes moved to her fellow student's face but was met only with her own highly distorted reflection in the mirrored visor of his helmet.

"Oh..." Was her grande reply as she chastised herself internally, her eyes facing forward once more as the two passed through the entranceway to the Tower, the wide automatic doors sliding to either side of them.

"I apologize if I brought up painful memories..." She offered as they began heading for a hall to their left, her gaze once more sidelong and resting upon the unreadable visage of a metallic helmet.

"Pain is a driving force; think nothing of it." He stated. "In any case, I've made my peace with my past."

And really, Six wanted her to think no more of it because even though he felt he'd settled with 'his' past, it didn't mean he liked remembering it or talking about it.

However, what the Spartan didn't realize was that being as uncomfortable with it as he was meant that he wasn't as at peace with it as he claimed.

There was a another lull in the conversation as the two now headed down the hallway off the main entrance's foyer, passing more students who were stopped in pairs or groups of three or more who were - more often than not - pausing in their respective conversations to eye the redheaded girl.

And then of course casting a glance to the hulking armored brute accompanying her.

"And yourself?" Six crushed the silence with his own inquiry before it could become awkward.

The red-and-gold clad girl, who had been stewing a bit in her thoughts, blinked again while repeating the question in her mind before answering.

"I come from Mistral." She said with a slight smile at the thought of her home; a slight smile born of the mixed feelings associated with her homeland. She was about to elaborate, but was cut off.

"And who wouldn't know that?" A new feminine voice broke in.

The owner of said voice was standing off to their right, in a doorway beyond which was their destination.

When Six first looked at the shorter girl who'd spoken, all he could think of was: white.

Long white hair descending from an off center bun pinned with some sort of tiara. Pale white skin. An open white bell sleeved jacket over an equally white strapless dress that ended mid thigh. White high heeled boots.

Okay, so she had red lining the inside of her jacket, the touch of black lace poking out just below her neckline, her earrings and necklace were silver and her eyes were most certainly not white, being a shade of blue darker than his own.

Still, it seemed white won the day with her.

The white girl continued, walking toward Pyrrha and seemingly ignoring Six.

"Pyrrha Nikos, the top graduate of her class at Sanctum Academy." The petite girl continued. "And most impressively, the winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament, four years in a row!"

Six just cocked a brow but was otherwise silent. Being helmeted, his minor reaction was missed entirely and he just appeared to loom near the redhead like some silent metal gargoyle.

The girl-in-white looked at him briefly with not quite a scowl but nonetheless a dismissive glance. Her eyes did roam his armor briefly, however, before returning to the red-and-gold clad girl where her expression lightened in a smile.

During this impromptu revelation, Pyrrha shot a glance of her own Six's way - as if to take in his reaction to the smaller girl's words.

Once again, the visor deflected all.

"Yes, that's me." The Nikos admitted freely, with something akin to resignation coloring her tone.

"It's really such an honor to meet you," The unnamed girl went on. "but oh my, where are my manners? I am Weiss Shnee."

The so-named Weiss stated with a curtsy before she stepped forward again, interposing herself between Wolf and the redhead.

"Well, it's nice to meet you Ms. Shnee." Pyrrha offered.

"Oh please, call me Weiss." She replied easily. "I had heard you would be attending Beacon but I didn't think I would get an oppurtunity to speak with you so soon. Really, there was something I wanted to discuss with you, if you could spare the time?"

As if to punctuate the end of her question, Six's left thigh plate began to emit the repetitive notes of a jingle. As he went to retrieve the offending item, Weiss led Pyrrha - who shot Wolf an apologetic look - back out into and down the hallway, speaking in an exuberant tone about something he didn't quite catch.

The Scroll now in hand, the Spartan stepped away from the doorway before looking at the miniaturized screen displaying the identity of his would be caller. After tapping the orange diamond shaped button he held the device up to the side of his helmeted head.

"Headmaster?"

"Spartan, I thought you'd like to know your stipend has been approved quite a bit earlier than I initially expected."

"I see." Six replied evenly. While that was good to know, he didn't see why that necessitated the professor calling him directly.

"Also," Ozpin continued. "it appears in my haste to get you situated here at Beacon, I forgot something rather basic." The professor sounded a bit sheepish.

"I'm listening."

"As a student of Beacon, there is a certain image that must be upheld; while like the whole of Remnant, where the freedom to express one's self pertains to nearly all forms including manner of dress, there is but one caveat during enrollment - Beacon, much like the other Huntsmen Academy's has a standarized uniform."

Six could see where the Headmaster was going with this.

"Nine times out of ten, procuring one for a student who did not make prior arrangements is a non-issue as all it takes is glancing over their file for their measurements and such, but given your... background, those will need to be made accounted for."

"Understood." Six did NOT want to traipse about with nothing more than a thin layer of synthetic fibers between himself and the world. This could be a major problem.

"However, I would imagine having you divested of your armor would not be something you would be willing to compromise on."

Six raised a brow.

"Your imagination is rather accurate." Wolf replied dryly.

"Quite, so, here's all I'll ask of you - the first official day for students won't be until two days from now. On that day, class photos will be taken. On that day, and that day alone, I would ask that you wear the uniform during said photo session."

That seemed... agreeable. But he wasn't going to let himself be far from the MJOLNIR, not just because of personal safety concerns but because of the classified technology it was composed of.

"I will agree to your proposition so long as what I deposit it into remains within my sight at all times."

He could hear the Headmaster taking a sip of coffee through the phone. Six had to wonder if the man had bladder issues with all that caffeine.

"That's completely understandable and easily arranged. Now, as for the measurements..."

* * *

Six reattached his helmet as he left the academy's infirmary - and one blushing nurse - behind. He was immune to the embarassment one would generally feel being clad in naught but a tank top and boxers in front of a woman.

After all, Spartan Beta Company - like all of the military of the UNSC - was entirely mixed gender; they trained together, they ate together, they showered together, they slept together.

Okay, so maybe the SPARTAN III program took things a bit farther than the doctrine of equal oppurtunity mandated but that was beside the point; in Six's mind, he had nothing a woman hadn't seen before and the opposite was entirely true to him as well.

As Wolf made headed back to where he'd been before receiving the call, he noted the decreasing number of students along the way. Passing back through the foyer and down the hallway he'd recognized leading to the ballroom saw no change in their dwindling number.

Arriving at his destination, Six found the trend continued within as well as he took in the layout of the ballroom; whereas before there had been some groups of students milling about the spacious, sleeping bag strewn floor, now there was a total of only eight; a group of three were making their way up one of two spiral staircases to the second overlooking floor while chatting, two more were seated in roughly the middle of the room playing a card game while the last was standing near the far end from the entrance nearest a stage, looking out one of the many sequential large windows which provided a view of outer campus grounds.

Heading in, Six let his eyes continue to run over the room; numerous identical chandelliers hung from even portions of a ceiling that sloped upward in wavelike humps. The windows on the first floor were each bracketed by thick, dark gray drapes and in between each window was a thing wooden pillar running along the wall to the ceiling above; a small unlit candle within a holder was affixed to each pillar. Along the floor nearest the walls were lightly glowing teal lighting of dot-and-dash design.

Spanning from the center of the room outward along the floor wooden floor was some design that was mostly obscured by the plethora of sleeping bags.

The final detail the Spartan took in where the wooden railings along the half-spiral staircases and along the overlooking arches of the second floor, the same variety of wood that went into the pillars, sloped sections of the ceiling above and floor below.

The purpose for gathering in the ballroom seemed simple enough; the dorm rooms of the school had likely not all been assigned just yet and so the student body would be sleeping here for the evening to come.

Speaking of sleep, Six had been pushing it a bit with his lack of sleep over the past two and half days; he could go for longer, of course, but he didn't feel the situation - as stable as it was now, called for it.

Wanting to be away from possible disturbances, the Spartan headed up the opposite staircase he saw the group from before scale and made his way to the far wall that would put the stage and floor below to his left. Settling into the corner and seating himself bent at the knees with his arms crossed over his chest with his back to the wall, he idly noted that with his height, even while seated, this position still granted him a partial view of the floor below just through the railing as well as the long approach to his position.

Resting his head back against the wall, Noble Six closed his eyes and let his breathing deepen as he fell into Morpheus' embrace.

* * *

 _Along a road cluttered with the smashed and overturned shapes of what once were vehicles was a house; one of many, but instantly recognizable._

 _It had a modern, practical design with burnished steel trim around the large rectangular window built into tan polycrete walls that looked into a living room - or would've if not cracked and caked with soot._

 _Its second story - mostly collapsed - boasted a another smaller set of windows, each as blackened as the one below._

 _Blackened by the flames the ever encroaching flames that cast wavering shadows and colored all in flickering oranges and muted yellows._

 _The front door, a sturdy metal affair, was slightly ajar._

 _Red blood ran down the doorframe to the floor below and away in a trail leading out of the the house to into the street._

 _A tug on the leg._

 _On the street below, the crawling figure of a girl trailing blood was looking up. A face so young, she couldn't be older than her tenth year; blood flowed from a wound obscured by matted black hair that covered one half of her face; the purple bow that once tied it off into one of two pigtails, missing._

 _One deep blue eye, staring accusatorily. A mouth twisted in a smile that held no warmth._

 _"You let me die, little G - - - n."_

* * *

Six's eyes snapped open as he lifted his head quickly from where it had dipped, his rapid breathing forcefully being brought under control with practiced deep breaths.

He noted it was darker now and a glance at his HUD's clock displayed it was a quarter past ten.

Looking down the rest of the hallway of the upper floor, he found he was the only one upon it but sounds off below and to his left showed that the ballroom had filled considerably, with small smatterings of conversations here and there. Still, the bulk majority of the students below were nestled in their sleeping bags, either asleep or attempting to be.

The chandelliers were no longer on but the hall was still dimly lit with wall mounted candles, though to Six's enhanced vision it appeared only half as bright as if it were still early evening. There was an exception to this in the form of a single candelabra positioned next to a long black haired girl who, apparently, was using its light to read a book.

Wolf felt the competing urges of getting more sleep and wanting to stretch his legs.

As he decided on the former, he idly noticed two girls - one with a familiar mop of short black hair, the other boasting long unruly blonde - head in the direction of the one with the book.

He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him.

* * *

Six was apparently one of the first to wake up.

His dreams, if any this time, were thankfully forgotten as he rose to his feet and stretched. Even within his armor, he could hear his neck pop as he rolled it while walking across the length of carpet spanning the second floor.

As he headed down the half-spiral staircase at a nearly imperceptible volume, he gave a cursory glance to the time displayed in his HUD which told him it was ten after seven.

Wolf idly wondered what that said about the work ethic of his prospective comrades that they would still be dead-to-the-world at this time of day.

Reaching the bottom, he turned for the door to the hall beyond that was mercifully open, lessening the chance of waking the many still slumbering forms dotting the ballroom floor.

Having one of those dreams like last night always left him irritable the following morning; he was in no mood to socialize.

The door shutting softly thanks to the door damper above it, Wolf didn't notice a certain ravenette scrubbing the sleep from her eyes as she sat up a ways behind him.

Needing something to focus on, he withdrew his Scroll and checked the map of Beacon; he was of two minds - on the one hand, he was growing hungry while on the other he still wanted solitude and quiet.

In the direction to his right, there was apparently a library; aside from seeking to sequester himself for a time, he wanted to see if there was any information on the CCTS to be found there, perhaps even divulgence of the existence of the AI he suspected was tasked with facilitating its operation.

Farther down the hall to his left, past the foyer and beyond the dorms beyond was a food court.

His stomach voiced its opinion with a muted gurgle; his decision was made.

After stowing his Scroll once more, Six looked idly looked out the open great open windows of the hall. He was tall enough to see over their lip of the wall that made for the bottom of the windows and out onto the campus grounds, in the center of which some sort of memorial was erected. Likely to famous Huntsmen past, he thought.

His mind shifting back onto his current objective, as he past the foyer. He doubted food would be permitted in the library so, assuming there was still time before the so-called Initiation, he'd head there after he had finished eating. A second rumble issued as his filters barely scrubbed the smell of cooking pancake batter and Wolf quickened his pace slightly.

Entering the mess hall, Six found it sparsely populated - though, not entirely quiet as one short orange haired girl in particular was practically talking the ear off of the green clad boy next to her, despite the fact that there was a pancake hanging out of her mouth.

Wolf found where the trays, already stacked with golden brown discs of goodness lay and retrieved one for himself before heading to an empty table perpindicular to the doorway.

Just as he was orienting himself so that the hallway and majority of the food court would remain in view, two figures entered - a girl with loose golden blonde hair practically draping herself on the shorter girl she obscured. He couldn't make out more of her appearance as her hair covered a significant portion of her back, but she seemed to be wearing a short tan skirt with some white fabric hanging below it as well brown boots with uneven kneehigh orange socks. As they headed over to where the trays were located, Six seated himself.

Depressurizing his helmet and removing it to sit on the table to the right of his tray, he set about digging into his grub as his eyes still ran their cursory inspection of the mess hall.

The two girls, the shorter of which who was revealed to be Ruby Rose, now seemed to be in the process of deciding where to sit while the other remarkable pair - or rather, the chatterbox herself was still joyfully continuing rambling spree between slurps of pancakes.

Taking another bite of his square sliced slabs of carbs, Six noted new arrivals to the cafeteria - a somewhat tall, broad shouldered boy with burnt-orange hair combed backwards being the only standout of the small crowd filtered in.

The Spartan decided to pick up the pace with his eating, what with the mess hall starting to fill. While not as prickly as he may have been after first awakening, he still wasn't up to being very sociable.

Unfortunately for Noble Six, he wouldn't be escaping another trial as the black-and-red and gold-and-tan themed girls each decided to take a seat at the table he was situated.

"Hi there!" The blonde bombshell greeted with a smile and no shortage of cheer as she seated herself directly across from the Spartan.

Seeing her from the front now, Six's slate blue eyes breezed rapidly over her form, filling in the blanks of her description.

Those blanks consisted of a short, puffy sleeved tan jacket closed over a yellow crop top emblazed with some black emblem over her left breast and a pair of wrist length, black fingerless gloves.

Six replied to the blonde's greeting with an aknowledging nod. He could already tell that this girl's level of energy would likely be problematic with his current temperment. Still, he wasn't ruled by his emotions, so he'd deal with it.

Prospective comrades, Six reminded himself.

"So, what's this I hear about you helping out my adorable little sister?" She said before taking a bite of her own flapjack.

A whining groan that sounded like "Yaaaang!" issued from Ruby. The red-and-black clad girl had been staring a bit heatedly at his disattached helmet before her apparent sister drew forth her one worded protest.

"Although," Undeterred by her erstwhile sibling, she leaned a bit forward with slightly narrowed eyes. "You look a bit too fleshy to be an android."

"Yang, c'mon that's not what I said!" Ruby interjected, finally tearing her gaze away from Six's helmet.

He was feeling the slightest bit unnerved by the younger's penetrating looks she was giving to it, feeling the urge to hide it behind him for some reason.

"I said he was geared up like an Atlesian, not that he was an android!" She punctuated her rebuttal with a stab of her own hotcake.

Wolf just raised a brow slightly; once again, comparisons were being made about his armor and what Atlas apparently boasts. When it came down to studying the Pod, he would need to look into them; they may have the sort of technological headstart that would make cracking its secrets that much quicker.

Still, he was getting far ahead of himself; besides hearing word of its advancement in a relevant field, he knew nothing about them other than they were a major power on Remnant. He could hardly just hand the Pod over to a nation state that would very likely cut him out and hoard its secrets to themselves.

And besides, he was just one while Atlas was a nation; if they found out about the existence of the Pod and decided they wanted it, Six'd be hard pressed to stop them.

Short of destroying it, but that would be shooting himself in the gut and ruining his own plan.

No, for now it would be best to proceed as originally intended by finding capable individuals that he could trust regarding its study.

As Six momentarily fell into his inner thoughts, the blonde - Yang apparently, still appeared to be expecting a response to her earlier question. Noticing this after taking another bite of his of few remaining pieces of pancake, Wolf made to answer.

"I heard the sounds of combat and came upon your sister engaged with a cane toting man." Another stab, chew and swallow. "He tried to kill her with an explosive then attempted to flee."

Six put his fork down and took a swig of the water he'd left sitting untouched on his tray until now - draining about half the glass.

"He didn't get far."

"Huh? That's it? No clashing ideals? No epic showdown?" The so-named Yang seemed to protest the terse and factual retelling of events.

Wolf thought a moment.

"I showed him the butt of my rifle and it clashed with his face." Six then drained the rest of his water as Yang blinked before cracking up.

"Hey, you're not as stiff as you look!" The blonde said with a grin. "The name's Yang Xiao Long. Thanks for looking after my sister." She said as she rubbed her shorter sibling's hair in an affectionate way.

If the irritated pout was anything to go by, the gesture wasn't entirely appreciated.

"Spartan." With a nod, his eyes shifted from a pair of amethyst orbs to dual silver, making eye contact with Ruby. "Wolf."

The younger of the duo was quick to catch the different surname but before she could voice her thoughts, Six continued as he gathered his helmet, standing up.

"B-312 is an alias of mine. One I've been accustomed to giving and responding to." He affixed his helmet back onto the neck underlayer of his armor before grabbing his empty tray from the table.

"It was not my intent to deceive you." While Ruby took Six's words with a somewhat thoughtful expression - well, as thoughtful as one could appear with a mouthful of hotcake.

Yang, however, just seemed lost.

"Hey, you're leaving already?"

"Unfortunately, I have a previous engagement to see to." He responded with his now electronically altered voice, his thoughts falling upon what he intended to look up in the library. "I will see you both at the Initiation."

With a nod, he left the table and the two siblings behind, unaware of how the conversation had shifted.

"Hmmm... it seems like you left some thing rather important out of your story there, little sis." Yang stated with with a uncharacteristically serious face.

Ruby gulped a little, the normally soft pancake bit rubbing uncomfortably in her esophagus; so she didn't mention almost being hit with the grenade. She dodged it, after all! Her silver eyes settled on her sister's cold violet gaze.

The coldness immediately melted as her eyes narrowed again, a grin stretching her lips once more.

"You never told me he was hot!"

The sound of someone choking and coughing could be heard behind Six as he put the cafeteria behind him, heading back down the hallway that would take him to the library.

The journey to his destination was brief, but as Wolf looked around at the numerous stacks of literature, he knew it had only been the first step.

Seeing no librarian at the counter, he would just have to conduct the search himself.

Alphabetical seemed like the way to go.

As he began his perusal of the stacks, Six thought not for the first time, that it was odd that though this it was an entirely different world that the language - both written and spoken - was the same as what he grew up with.

Actually, that was more than just odd; it really should have been impossible. Unless, of course, Remnant does - contrary to what the Headmaster believes - owe its origin to UNSC or of-the-books colonization.

Or, and this time Six permitted himself to entertain a rather unfathomable idea, both Earth and Remnant are both merely colonies established by the means of another.

But, he had nothing to back up that assertion other than conjecture; the likelihood for humanity to evolve so similarly on two different worlds naturally - without outside meddling - just seemed anethema to logic and the laws of probability.

Sure, there was a percentage of likelihood, but it was so small. Then, add to it all the other factors; the similar technology, similar social structures and - the most damning, the very same language.

To say it was all chance was just rang hollow.

Still, wondering about such mysteries wouldn't help him find anything on the CCTS, so he put the thoughts to rest as he passed yet another stack without success.

As he came upon the next stack, his Scroll went off; retrieving it and finding that it was a message, not a call, he pulled the display tabs apart to view it.

His eyebrows nearly moved up his forehead a whole inch.

Someone with less control of themselves would've shit their pants due to the timing and relevance of what was just presented them.

The sender read as CCT-AI.

Getting over his minor shock, he reread the message.

'Students who have received this message: You are among Initiation Group A. Gather your gear and report to the cliffs for Initiation.'

He now had his confirmation. Calmly relishing in accomplishing the first step of his ancillary plan, the Spartan turned to leave the library and head straight for the cliffs, as indicated on his map.

He had all his gear on him; there was no need for detours.

* * *

The cliff face, thought the Spartan, was rather sparse.

Six had been the first to arrive as he double timed from the academy, proper. It hadn't been so far away, but it was a bit of a jog.

Only a few minutes ago did the last student arrive, some near beanpole of a boy.

Looking around himself as he was positioned on some flat platform built into the cliff face, he internally remarked at the lacking diversity of vegetation. There were a few taller trees on the higher climbs but other than that, nothing but short saplings and a smattering of various sizes of boulders broke the monotony of uniformly short grass.

The initiates of Group A were fourteen in number, including himself. As he'd been the first to arrive, he was on the far right platform. To his direct left was Ruby who arrived with Yang, then came that burnt-orange haired tall boy, followed by the boy who suffered in silence as his ear was talked off in the cafeteria and the girl who did the jabbering. Next came a boy with a mohawk and after him was Pyrrha. Weiss came a few minutes later followed by four other kids he given only cursory scrutiny and then the aforementioned stick.

Seeing that everyone had arrived, Ozpin finally allowed himself a small smile.

The Headmaster had been waiting in front of the arrivals drinking, once more, from a seemingly bottomless cup of coffee. Next to him, of course was caped blondy - A.K.A. Glynda Goodwitch.

"For years you have trained to become warriors." The bespectacled professor began, leaning on his cane as he looked over the gathered. "And today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."

As the Headmaster took a slow sip from his ceramic chalice, Glynda spoke up. "Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams." There were a few murmurs to that before she continued, silencing them. "Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates... today."

"What?" Ruby exclaimed before whimpering out an 'Awwww'.

The coffee lord took the reigns once more. "These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon." His eyes fell on Ruby for a moment as she continued to mumble a bit with a piteous quality, before sweeping the line of students in full. "So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well."

"That being said," He continued and Wolf thought he detected a slight mischevious glint in the Headmaster's eye. "the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

"What?!" Ruby exclaimed, though she didn't seem to be the only one perturbed by the professor's words.

However, it was the chatterbox who piped up next and she seemed to be directing her comments to the black haired, pony tailed boy in green beside her.

"See? I told you."

Ozpin just continued as if deaf to the distress of his pupils - or perhaps, the Spartan thought, enjoying said distress behind that carefully fashioned mask of his. "After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way." His eyes took gained a bit of steel to their gaze.

"Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die." He paused, looking into the eyes of each of the students - save for Six, who he merely stared into the visor of, before continuing his address.

"You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation. But our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one, and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately." He paused once more, taking another sip from the cup that defied physics.

"Are there any questions?"

Six just flexed his fists, cracking his knuckles in the process.

Lowering the mug from his lips, the Headmaster spoke.

"Good! Now, take your positions."

The initiates, to Six's surprise, begin being catapulted off - without warning, by way of the platforms they were standing on.

Beginning with the opposite end of the line and continuing with each sequentially in his direction, arrangement wise. Noble Six observed the students being launched with part incredulity and part curiosity; he wondered just how they're going to soften their landings without killing themselves before he postulated it had to have something to do with the Aura; after all, the Headmaster did say it could act as a shield.

The Spartan wasn't confident his MJOLNIR's shield could withstand and therefore allow him to survive such a jarring impact the likes of which the velocities the students were being launched at would yield. With his own aura suffering from some sort of 'interference', he would just have to make do with what he had.

Fortunately, he was confident in the method he was about to field.

As Wolf readied himself by bending at the knees, the orange haired chatterbox was launched with a whoop.

Out of the corner of his eye, Noble Six saw Yang slide on a pair of shades mere seconds before being propelled from the cliff.

Ruby was but a second later, followed by Six himself.

Six was didn't even feel the G-forces he must've been experiencing as he cut through the air like an titanium cast statue. As he reached the apex of his trajectory and began falling back to terra firma, his HUD had already brought up his IR distance detector, which typically was only active when using the zoom function on his visor or viewing through the linked optics of a scope. As the numbers sped down from thirty meters to twenty five, Six made activated his Armor Lock.

* * *

The Headmaster and his assistant slash faculty member watched as Spartan-B312's horizontal arrangement of limbs - which had been splayed as if he had intended to belly flop as a form of landing - shift into a position that made him appear to be crouching in mid air; bent with a shin that would meet the ground first, the opposite knee near his chest, one arm bent slightly behind him and at the side while the other arm was extended downward in a clenched fist.

The professor merely raised a brow as the Spartan's armor began emmitting large whisps of blue-white energy that practically made him glow like a falling star as he passed through the trees.

Literally.

Glynda, who was instead watching his progress via her scroll, was able to keep track of him due to the numerous cameras hidden about the forest. She watched as Six plowed and smashed straight through tree, after tree, after tree, after tree, after tree before slamming into the grass covered dirt below and skidding to a halt, leaving a five meter trench that extended from an initial impact crater and kicking up quite the impressive cloud of dust.

Her flaxen eyebrows, which during the course of Noble Six's flight and subsequent obliteration of every hardpoint in his path, had continue to rise proportionately to the widening of her eyes.

They lifted even further as the black metal clad young man suddenly unfroze from his crouched position from within the earthen haze and a wave of clear, rippling energy blasted off his form before all the feeds within a twelve meter radius went dead.

Luckily, another camera just beyond that range was still angled in the Spartan's direction and zoomed in to see him just walking away from the massive impact and expulsion of energy as if it were just a walk in the woods.

Which was ironic, because he was walking through the woods.

Beside her, the sound of the Headmaster slurping his coffee served to break her from her stupor.

"You know," Glynda began, before sliding her glasses back up her nose from where they were precariously close to falling off. The Headmaster just looked at her. "For a brick, he flew pretty good."

The professor's response was another of sip of coffee.

* * *

As he vacated the second clearing he'd created by crashlanding on Remnant, Six heard several closing airborne explosions and looked up to momentarily observe the retreating form of Yang soar past him by some means he hadn't been able to determine. Some small explosions occuring in her wake had been all he he'd been able to gather.

Not even two whole stops later, the Spartan paused again as off to his left he heard what sounded like trees being smashed into - a sound he was becoming rather familiar with. In any case, he counted two such crashes, before silence fell once more.

He, drew his DMR as he took stock of his situation. He had a bit of a problem with his navigation system - it was displayed as recalibrating and currently, even though he made a nice divet in the canopy, he couldn't see the sun's position so he wasn't able to determine north. He had already check for moss growths on the trees but, to his surprise, found none.

What made matters worse was that when he Armor Locked, he had somehow curved a bit sidelong so he couldn't just proceed in the direction the trough he carved, though the only other option available would be just picking a random direction and sticking to it.

Or he could try to meet up with the source of the shattering wood to his left and see if there was a clearing in that direction - that would potentially kill two birds with one stone; he'd find his way and link up with whomever his four year comrade would be.

His mind made up, Wolf began heading in the direction the impacts had issued from.

The path he was taking wasn't so much a path as it was more of the old past time of dodging tree clumps, tall grass and the odd boulder but it did eventually cut across a game trail.

He briefly entertained the idea of following it before nixing it and continuing in his previous heading.

A few more thick elms skirted and Six slowed as his motion tracker returned six hostiles that were cutting across his tracker's range from eight o'clock to three o'clock. They were moving at a good clip, too as they'd already closed to within four meters.

As luck would have it, there was a clearing just before him and, what he now visually confirmed to be Beowolve, were running with their oblong gate through it.

That feeling that had arisen everytime he spotted a Grimm arose within him once more and he made no attempt to stop it.

Six levelled his DMR from a crouched position he'd assumed and began putting down lead; three pulls of the trigger precipitated three headshots which painted the forest floor with the red smatterings of blood, the gray liquidy chunks of brain and white shards of shattered skull.

The lead three were dead before any of them knew there was something gunning for them. As their vanguard fell into sliding and dead tumbles, the other three scattered in a remarkable display of intelligence. Well, it was remarkable to Wolf because the last time he'd crossed paths with this variety of Grimm, they had practically leapt into death's embrace. Still, this time they weren't leaping, they were just skipping along.

The leftmost Beowolf that had inadvertantly jumped closer to his direction - either by chance or intent - got to find out what it felt like to be treated to sprout wings as a fourth and fifth 7.62 round cored its center, souping its innards in a double spray behind it that were like twin arcs of feathery red but were in actuality shredded intestines.

The black helldog that had been in the rear as well its fellow that had been furthest from Six had grouped back up while growling at the Spartan, hunkering lower to the ground - a precursor to a charge.

They were, however, disturbed from their stances as a golden lance head bloomed from the center of the farthest of their remaining number.

As it feel to the ground dead, the spear - to Six's surprise reversed its course and was caught by the unmistakable red-and-gold form of Pyrrha Nikos.

As soon as she caught the spear by its haft, it shifted - as many weapons were wont to do on Remnant - into the form of a golden edged sword, slightly longer than her arm. The red-and-gold clad Nikos lunged forward in an impressive display of agility even as the remaining Beowolf had turned to attack her.

It was however, already over - in her lunge, she had pivoted on her heel, twisting her body in an ascending diagonal slash that took the left arm and head of the wolfen Grimm.

As the two wet THUDs were followed by a slightly louder THUMP - the sounds of the limb, head then body of the now deceased beastie, Six lowered his weapon and stood from his crouched position.

Honestly, Six was impressed. Her reaction speed would've had SPCO Mendez or Lt. Ambrose back on Onyx frothing at the mouth at the chance to make her into a Spartan.

Then again, if this was what all Huntresses and Huntsman were capable of, his two former senior officers would've pushed for an entire new Company to be established.

Still, with as fast as she was - both in her reaction time as well as movement speed, and assuming she hadn't been holding back, Six was certain he could outspeed her by quite a margin.

His thoughts practically moving at the blink of an eye, Six emerged from the copse of foliage he'd been crouched behind as Pyrrha turned in his direction, flicking off the sublimating blood from her sword.

"Spartan!" She began with a grin. "So it was you was taking down these cretins. You work rather quickly."

"I would have to return those words to you." He said easily.

"When I heard gunfire, I believed time may have been of the essence." Her eyes seemed to trace his gun a moment before her gaze feel back on his visor. "I believe this makes us partners?"

The Spartan quirked the edge of his lips up behind his visor. He didn't know if Ozpin was watching, though did say that instructors would be. If it were up to the coffee mongering Headmaster, he wouldn't put it past him to play technicalities.

Technically, they haven't met each other's eyes yet.

Six stowed his rifle before depressurizing and removing his helmet and giving Pyrrha his answer.

Slate blue met emerald green as Wolf gave his response.

"I believe it does."

* * *

 **XX**

 **As I said, I had to cut more from this so expect the next chapter to be out before Saturday or the night of.**

 **Oh, and a cookie to who can point out the not-as-obvious reference to the games.**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Well, looks like no life poops to get in the way this time, so this one beats the dead line by a day and a bit.**

 **Important note at the end, people.**

 **Enjoy. ;P**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

Feeling assured that possible technicalities had been done away with, Spartan-B312 returned his helmet to its proper place - re-establishing its link to his armor as it locked in place upon his head.

The MJOLNIR's inbuilt hardware suite was rather robust, with numerous self-diagnostic sensors and even a prototype minor auto-repair function to compliment redundant systems so that the 'tools of the trade' - the motion tracker, navigation system, weapon interlinking and comm systems - for its Spartan would continue working on the battlefield even if it took quite a battering.

Which is why Wolf was a bit perturbed at what was revealed; his lips nearly twitched in a frown upon seeing that the navigation system had still yet to recalibrate.

When he had first crash landed on Remnant in the Pod, the impact had been more jarring than his 'flight through the woods', so he wasn't entirely sold on the possibility of damage causing the problem with the direction finding nav system. Besides, he had been in Armor Lock; he had taken far more durable objects to the face than trees when engaged in that protective mode.

He briefly recalled the time an overzealous split chin had tried to run him down in a Wraith and how poorly it turned out for the blue-blooded alien.

Good times.

Shaking off his memories, he began looking into his current concern with a mental nudge via his neural lace, bringing up the diagnostics on his nav system and discovering that the problem wasn't an internal issue - his nav system's sensors were being jammed.

Six retrieved his Scroll from its thigh compartment, opened and expanded its screen then began to delve through its menus as Pyrrha made her way toward him from the opposite side of the clearing; in the periphery of his vision, he could see a somewhat curious look upon her face.

"It would seem part of this Initiation is to teach students not to be overly reliant on technology in finding their way." Wolf offered as he'd opened the map tab which, like every menu before it, displayed three large red words : ERROR - Interference Detected.

Replacing his Scroll, Six was still displeased that despite the MJOLNIR Mk V-B being a pinnacle of technology, one of its systems was currently being affected by ECM (Electric Counter Measures).

Still, Wolf took solace in all of his other systems reading green across the board. It appeared his motion tracker, which was similar to the nav system, was made a bit hardier.

Add to that, his nav system _was_ trying to recalibrate and compensate for the jamming, so that was something; if only he had that AI right now, the process would be far quicker, if not complete already.

As the Spartan had mentally groused while once again drawing his DMR, his red-and-gold clad partner had been checking her Scroll as well, frowning slightly before putting it back to where she'd withdrawn it.

"It is worrisome that we were not forewarned of this." She stated.

"Such is the nature of the battlefield." Six started as he looked up through the open canopy of the small clearing, finding the sun peering through it. "It's ever changing and at any time equipment you rely on could break down, leaving you stranded."

Visualizing an analog clock face in his mind representative of the digital display on his HUD, he reoriented himself accordingly.

"That's why it's imperative to have alternatives." Six turned to Pyrrha, while gesturing with his helmeted chin. "North is this way."

The two put the clearing behind them as they began to head in the direction of the abandoned temple.

Or what Six thought was the direction of the abandoned temple; due to not having seen a world map with proper latitudes and longitudes - only the rough regional map provided by Tucker and the local map of Beacon on his Scroll, Noble Six was not aware of the slight deviation of Remnant's axial tilt which caused his approximation of true north to be off by a margin of some tens of meters.

As they walked in relative silence, watchful of further signs of Grimm, Six thought over the little demonstration of Pyrrha's fighting style; unless she had a gun hidden on her somewhere, the alternating sword and spear plus shield combo would - obviously - point toward her being a melee focused fighter.

She had a mean arm, for an unaugmented human, if she was able to have that spear punch through that Beowolf's just by throwing it and she possessed enough strength and technique to scythe through flesh and bone in a single clean swipe of it in sword mode.

The latter, Six chalked up to extensive physical training and perhaps dipping into her Aura.

Speaking of her Aura, he didn't see a corona about her like the Headmaster displayed back in the Tower, but she clearly was tapping into something when she remotely returned her weapon to her hand.

Wolf wondered if that was her 'Semblence'; if so, it was quite similar - if not the same as - Goodwitch's.

Uncharacteristically, the Spartan was the one to break the silence.

"So, how did you avoid becoming a red-and-gold pancake?" He asked with some intentionally disarming humor, observing her from the corner of his eye - hoping to suss out some of the limitations or applications of Aura.

"The same way as you, I'd imagine." Pyrrha replied with a small grin while tapping her shield with the pommel of her sword. Wolf interpereted that as meaning Aura could somehow be channeled into objects and not just the body, as the professor had explained the day before.

"That cacophany of trees being smashed came from beyond the side of the clearing you entered from." The Nikos tossed out a question of her own, though judging from her ungaurded facial expression, hers seemed less probing in nature and more of genuine curiosity. "That was you, was it not?"

"It was." Wolf was mildly pleased his erstwhile partner wasn't just a pretty face. Though, it didn't take much more than simple deductive reasoning to propose such a conclusion, but at least it proved she was capable of that much.

"And how did..." She continued, her face scrunching up slightly in thought a moment, as if she were trying to phrase something but wasn't accustomed to coming up with the words. Her expression evened out again as she seemed to resolve her dilemma, though there was now a slight anxiety in her voice - as if afraid of offending. "... how did you keep from ending up a black crumpled tin can?"

The edge of Six's lips twisted up in a small smirk as he took his left hand from his rifle and rapped the top of his helmet with a closed fist, issuing a few metallic clanks.

"I'm rather hard-headed."

The girl laughed a bit with a small smile, one that was a mixture of relief and genuine humor.

A comfortable silence descended upon the duo as they continued heading in the direction Six had pointed out. While there weren't as many clumped together trees along the uncleared path they were blazing, there were times the seven footer had to duck down below some sturdier low-hanging branches.

The rest he just walked straight through, snapping them and showing that wood had nothing on titanium.

He once again wondered at why the flora of Remnant, despite not - supposedly - being a UEG (United Earth Government) colony, was mostly identical with what he was familiar with. Not for the first time, he considered that Remnant was an intentionally disconnected and isolated sort that owed its establishment to unofficial means.

Well, Six figured, perhaps the library would have something on that. Though, the Headmaster was being honest back in the Tower; he really believed Remnant was alone and had always been as such, so information on its origins may be a heavily guarded secret - gaurded even from someone in as high a position as him.

If so, then why?

It was all conjecture, though, Wolf groused. All this... freedom and lack of urgency was giving him too much time to think unnecessary things.

He just needed to focus on his goal.

"I'm sorry about ditching you the other day." Six was suddenly pulled from his musings as the grecian armor clad girl beside him spoke up. "Ms. Schnee wanted to see about teaming up today. She had been rather insistant." Her brow furrowed slightly.

"By the time I acquiesced to considering it and returned to where I had left you, you were already gone."

The red-and-gold girl seemed a bit nervous for a reason Wolf couldn't make sense of; he had merely been leading her to the ballroom.

"Not a problem - the call I recieved as you headed off proved to be another engagement I had to see to." He thought for a moment before adding a bit more. "We would've had to part ways, anyway."

"I see." Some release of tension seemed to color her body language. "I think I was in the middle of properly introducing myself before, well, Ms. Schnee beat me to the punch."

She smiled a bit ruefully as her eyes, which had been sweeping the taller undergrowth edging the game trail they had come upon, shifted to Six's unreadable helmeted face.

"I tend to get that alot, how Ms. Schnee acted I mean." She paused a moment. "Now that you know what you know, I guess you can see why I acted as I did in the amphitheater..." She seemed to not know how to continue, but the Spartan - in a rare moment of social insight, threw her a bone.

"You are concerned with only being valued by your reputation?"

At that she nodded.

"Well, reputation is indeed relevant; it is the crystalized consensus of many and a usually fair measure of something or someone." He spoke, thinking on how the public viewed the Covenant; an innumerous legion of alien monsters; a nearly unstoppable enemy.

Pyrrha wasn't privy to his thoughts - only his words, and upon hearing them her expression seemed to go a slight bit glum.

"However, I prefer making my own assessments when encountering something for the first time." He then thought about his first engagement with a cadre of Grunts, Jackals and a few Elites.

He remembered how easily he tore them apart and how cathartic it felt.

"Too much can be lost in an oversimplification."

Pyrrha's expression had done a one eighty, lightening once more. She seemed about to be about to say something before her eyes shifted forward, taking in the view before them as they broke through another treeline and entered another clearing.

This one was far larger than the two Six had encountered previously amongst these woods. Before the two Initiates, was a cliff face - not nearly as tall as the one they had been launched from, but of a fair size if one were to try to climb it.

Six idly estimated its height at thirty five meters; shorter than the walls around Vale. In any case, the rise of rock - which stretched in either direction until it once again was obscured by trees and other vegetation - was impeding their progress forward.

Though, Wolf noted, there was a ground level cave entrance along the natural barrier some ten or so meters to the left of their position.

As the two moved out into the clearing, they both seemed to have taken note of the rocky oriface as they'd both deviated in its direction.

Standing within a few meters of it now, Six noted the odd discolorations in the rockface to the right of the entrance he'd written off as some different variations of mineral were actually some sort of paintings; what they depicted was lost as the design seemed to have been distorted and faded, possibly from rains or other forms of erosion.

"Hmm..." The Nikos began. "I don't think a cave would make for very obvious ruins. Still, perhaps the ruins are inside the cave?"

She looked to the side at Six who was much of the same mind; the Headmaster hadn't given any other descriptor of the location of the Initiates' objective other than 'ruins'. It could just be another part of the test after all and this cave could be their destination or a red herring, left for the students to figure out.

Still, the faded painting near the entrance meant this was a known location of the forest, so it had some significance.

In the end, there was only one way to find out.

He was about to turn to Pyrrha and bring voice to his thoughts when his motion tracker picked up movement at the very edge of its range, from within the dark recesses of the cavern. It was just far enough away that the 'smart' tracking function was unable to assign a friend-or-foe color and thus represented the anamolous return as an amorphous blue blob.

The dark recesses of the cavern, as well as the way the tunnel seemed to curve and descend slightly served to keep whatever triggered the return beyond visual acquisition.

Normally, darkness would provide a poor form of camouflage against a Spartan, but the lack of light farther into the grotto contrasting with the well lit clearing they were in made the darkness beyond his limits of being able to pierce unaided - besides, he was no SPARTAN II; his nightvision was better than an unaugmented human's, but was still inferior to that of those monsters.

While leveling his DMR, he activated his helmet mounted flashlight as a particular scar along his chest throbbed in remembrance of a particular night blindness training exercise with Lt. Ambrose.

"Movement in the cave." Six cautioned, stepping back slightly.

Pyrrha just looked at him from the corner of her eye while raising a brow before following his reverse movement, her sword shifting into a rifle.

 _Huh, so she did have a gun after all._

"Are you sure?" The faux Grecian queried while returning her sight to the throat of the cavern. As if to answer her question, a low hiss could be heard eminating from within.

"I am." The tracker return received its designation; the blob went red even as it began heading straight toward them at a startling pace - the size of the blob didn't sharpen any, which to Six meant whatever was generating the movement was either a close group of hostiles or...

The hiss fluctuated into a shrill screech as ten glowing, orange-red orbs shifted into view around what must have been a bend within the tunnel, accompanied by the rapid yet heavy skittering of a multitude of inhuman legs - all growing in size and volume as whatever it or they belonged to continued to close the distance.

If those are eyes and all belong to one creature...

Six immediately stowed his DMR and withdrew his IGL.

"Get back!" He pulled and kept depressed the trigger only a second later, seeing Pyrrha heed his words practically as he spoke them.

The 40mm grenade soared a few meters past the mouth of the cave, impacting the roof of the rocky throat. Upon the the plink of the projectile hitting its intended target, Wolf released the trigger causing the explosive to detonate. By good forture, the rock composing the ceiling must have already been nearing collapse as it came down in chunks and sheets of displaced sediment, sealing the entrance in a pile of rubble.

The tracker was unreliable at the moment due to all the varying movement so Six continued to retreat while facing the devastation he caused, reloading another round in an automatic action.

A few seconds passed as things stilled.

Well, things within direct line of sight. The red blob hadn't disappeared, it hadn't stopped.

It was still moving, even faster, as it closed ten meters. Then five. Then...

"We're going to need to move." Six offered the obvious as he began to retreat more quickly, stowing his IGL for his DMR.

"Huh? Why-"

Pyrrha's question was simultaneously interrupted and answered as a massive black and bone-white form smashed through the rubble that had only momentarily blocked off the cave.

The creature, which was easily the largest Grimm Wolf had seen to date, was the same as the one that had been on the target plate in Rost's workshop; it was a gargantuan scorpion.  
Its head was a bony white and had similarly colored plates extending back down the length of its body in an articulated fashion, and up a tail that ended in a large yellow barbed stinger.

Its sizable pincers were topped with the same bony plating and all amongst said plates were those odd, red tribal markings. Where white plating was absent was smooth, black carapace.

It thundered forward, pursuing Six and Pyrrha an dual sets of three black legs apiece even as the two Initiates retreated while facing it, falling back at an angle perpindicular to the one that they'd entered the clearing from.

As Six put the unevenly spaced trees that ringed the clearing before him in attempt to slow the advance of the hulking arachnid, he was none too surprised when the overgrown bug smashed right through them with swipes of its ungainly foreclaws.

Still, the trees provided some distraction as he and Pyrrha continued to try to put some distance between themselves and the hulking Grimm - a distraction that did seem to slow it, as it needed to articulate its limbs to bring them about to clear the detritus from its pursuit.

The second time the Grimm slowed to take a clearing smash of its pincers, Six shouldered his rifle and sent two rounds at its skull - directly between its two largest eyes. Unfortunately, the DMR's 7.62mm rounds only served to cause the barest hint of fractures in the sturdy plate.

That and piss of the monster bug as it redoubled its chase of its human prey; it didn't even bother to complete the lashing of its right pincer as it barrelled right through a particalarly stout sycamore, sending a barrage of wooden shrapnel at the two hunters-in-training.

Pyrrha deflected a bevy of stake to toothpick sized missles with a combination of her metallic shield and her Aural variety; extending her coverage in a partial shimmering dome beyond the armbound gold disk, that served to cover her body even as she countinued to leap backward in spurts through the forest.

Six didn't have the luxury of an Aura borne shield, so his MJOLNIR's took up the slack; still, the pelting of arborous barrage, whittling them down to 85% as he continued to pound ground in reverse, nearly stumbling on a root in the process.

The near stumble cost him distance, though, as the chittering arachnid had closed to dueling range; Six's eyes widened slightly as the lengthy tail whipped back before rocketing forward in a near blur.

He was spared being a metal skinned shishkabob by the sudden impact of a golden disk slammed into its barbed business end, making the scorpion's tail thrust fall short and into the ground where the beastie had to pause to extricate its biological spear.

As soon as metallic saucer had impacted the tail, it returned to sender by, as Six idly noticed, the same means Pyrrha had called upon before. Still, the save opened up an oppurtunity; as the creature slowed to keep itself from plowing into its own tail, Six let his left hand drift from the bottom of his DMR and swipe a Frag from his belt, cooking it for a two count as he continued to move back from the eight legged freak.

Tossing the grenade just above and past the yellow of its barbed tail, he was heard the WHUMP and subsequent plinks of the imbedded shrapnel of the Frag impact the chitinous armor of the beast; Six was no fool - he knew that Frags were made deadly not by the force of their boom, but by their payload and the velocity they delivered it.

He was rewarded only half a second later as the armored behemoth screeched loudly while pulling free its stinger - the eyes on the left half of its boney head were a ruined, bloody mess. Furthermore, as an unintended bones, the center of its skull must of been the unlucky recipient of a few particularly sharp pieces of flying metal bits, as the the small cracks in the spot Wolf had previously fired on had spider webbed and were now also slowly leaking the creatures viscous black blood.

The enraged beast renewed its attempt to catch the two retreating Initiates, taking wide swings of its pincers at the annoying black metaled one in particular.

The Spartan, his left hand back on his rifle stock, decided to have a go of it again and fired instead of at its head, to its black legs - specifically at the upper joints, both believing the armor to be weaker there and also hoping to slow it down.

"The legs!" He bellowed, as he opened up - his rifle barking thrice more in controlled, single round fired followed by a double tap. His three were accompanied by two more, courtesy of Pyrrha, who had switched her weapon back to rifle mode.

His first shot missed the joint but hit the leg itself, causing cracking in the black chitin, while the second and third struck home; the first round to hit its intended target buried itself in the leg's joint, causing it to lock mid stride.

The following round, hounding the trail of the first, slammed into its fellow, causing both of them and some arachnid viscera to blast out of the opposite side of the leg with a CRUNCH, which was immediately followed by a wet snapping sound and a screech of pain from the overgrown bug as it was effectively slowed down somewhat.

Pyrra's shots weren't as dead on and struck one of the legs behind Six's target; one hitting the top of the leg join, but only scraping along the armor and being deflected due to the angle while the second of her two rounds impacted the leg proper but failed to penetrate.

Six made the snap deduction that either her rifle caliber wasn't sufficient or perhaps Dust based rounds lacked the propelling velocity to achieve proper penetration.

 _Definitely something to look into later, when I'm not on the menu of a monstrous arachnid,_ Six thought.

Though the beastie was slowed in its advance, it wasn't by too much and the newly formed partners had to continue their retreat.

They managed to exit another treeline and once more found themselves a clearing, the scorpion on steroids in hot pursuit, even lunging after them and through the otherwise sturdy flora - smashing it into so many wooden daggers.

Fortunately for both Six and Pyrrha, they had put enough distance between themselves and the engraged arachnid and the impromptu shrapnel fell short of reaching them for the most part - Pyrrha once more relying on a combination of Aura and physical shielding to deflects the errant salvo as Wolf's shields ate the negligible darts for lunch, only reducing them further to 80%.

The giant scorpion continued its forward momentum, bringing up its up left pincer before lashing out at Six's red-and-gold clad partner. The blow was telegraphed enough for Pyrrha to dodge in another backward leap and out of his peripheral vision.

Pyrrha now being clear, Six stowed his DMR for his IGL in a blur of arm movement and fired at the connecting join of the still overextended claw of the Deathstalker, keeping the trigger depressed until just the right moment.

And the moment was seized upon.

A cracking explosion accompanied a smattering of black chitinous debris and blackish blood, as the large pincer was sent sailing away, off to the right under its former self propelled inertia with an oscillating whooshing sound, before lodging in a particular thick tree and nearly snapping it in half from the impact.

Once more the oversized arachnid screeched and actually hopped to its left as Six reloaded and let loose another pipe grenade to where its leftmost and undamaged leg cluster was.

The detonation, unfortunately for the Grimm, still occured within damaging distance and blew apart its closest remaining right leg - just behind the stump of the first leg to go, causing it to fall onto the ground without the ability to carry its weight effectively.

Even as Six was once more reloading and stowing his IGL, Pyrrha rushee just past him with her right arm behind her head - her weapon shifted back into a spear mode - and her left held out before her, empty save for the shield on her arm before hurling the spear like a javelin with both her forward momentum and - to Six's surprise - rocket thrust from the haft end.

The spear shot through the air in a near blur - to Six's enhanced perception, burying itself partway through the compromised portion of the skull of the once again screeching mega bug.

It began thrashing on its remaining limbs, its tail surging forth in an unaimed strike of desperation that still forced Pyrrha to roll to the side from but was still wide of Six, as he closed the three meter distance between himself and the Grimm in a bumrush, his now empty right hand lunged forward, grabbing the haft of the embedded spear while his left hand lashed out in a fist plunging though one of the already obliterated larger eyes of the beast before opening and gripping it by the inside of the socket then slamming his left booted foot into the ground heavily for added traction, putting his immense strength to use and driving the spear the rest of the way through the skull of the shrieking arachnid - all the way to the haft.

The arachnid's growing screeches were cut off as it went still before falling flat on the ground once more; its limbs splaying out while the tip of its stinger dug a shallow trough through the dirt, its tail retracting in on itself from its previous overextension before it, too, remained motionless.

Six then yanked free the borrowed weapon, shook free some of the submlimating gore as he turned around and tossed it back to Pyrrha, lengthwise.

As she caught it with a small smile, Six looked beyond her and noticed the dilapidated stucture that was the focal point of the clearing they'd been harried into.

"I suppose we were going the wrong way." Wolf admitted with some confusion.

Nodding with his head in the direction past Pyrrha while walking toward what could only be described as ruins, even as she turned around and took in the sight for herself.

To Six it resembled an ancient Roman colosseum, albeit small scale and missing the spectator stands; his opinion shifted and he dismissed that comparison as he took more of it in - it appeared to have been fully enclosed at one time, though now the walls had mostly fallen.

"Whoa! You two really made short work of that big bug. You made that look easy!" A familiar jubilant voice came from within the structure.

The curvaceous tan-and-yellow form of Yang exited the ruin, laughing a bit alongside a silent long black haired girl, both in the process of stowing and retracting their respective weapons.

Six surmised they had been intending to lend aid but were either too slow too act or felt they would get in the way.

The ravenette's eyes, Wolf noted, were somewhat cautious, even as she surveyed the now rapidly decomposing arachnoid Grimm beyond the approaching two would-be Hunters. That, she realized, could have been a big problem.

"Yes, well, it was in no small way a simple matter I assure you but my partner's quick thinking I believe granted us this otherwise trying victory." Pyrrha deflected some of the praise.

And she honestly had been impressed with how Spartan was able to keep his fire on point while having to move so quickly in a blind direction. She had keen reflexes herself, but she was having some difficulty keeping her own shots on the Death Stalker's leg joint.

She could feel her competitive spirit, the same that had begun to wain after her second tournament victory, begin to smolder anew.

Six had already redrawn his IGL, reloading it before stowing it before taking out his DMR once more - checking its ammo as he did. He was paying only minor attention to the back and forth between Yang Xiao Long and Pyrrha and felt no need to comment other than to give a brief nod.

He had fallen even with the blonde and the ravenette when another set of tracker responses brought his attention to the far right of his position; two were yellow and one was red; the peculiar thing was that that the closer friendly return was practically on top of the hostile.

As he levelled his rifle in the direction of the incoming tracker returns he called out. "Hostile and friendlies, three o'clock."

"Huh? Pretty sure it's not past noon yet, big guy." The grin could be heard in Yang's voice even as she and her companion also turned in Six's direction, though they didn't draw or ready their weapons as they did. Pyrrha, however, already noting her partner's albeit limited body language, shifted her spear into rifle mode and gazed out at the edge of the clearing.

As the motion tracker returned at ten meters, an Ursa broke through the treeline, beginning to roar as it did.

Only to be cut off by a loud reverberating THWACK as the life left its eyes. A giggling whoop accompanied a figure that had been... riding on its back, as the now identified girl lept to the ground. The short haired orangette was speaking to a green and white clad boy who seemed to be a bit out of breath and had just, himself, entered the clearing alongside her.

Six recognized the two as the Chatterbox and her Victim.

The two new arrivals then started toward Six and Pyrrha, or rather, to the structure behind them more likely, while the girl swung around a rather large two-handed war hammer; which no doubt caused the sound behind the Ursa's demise.

"Awww, looks like we're not the first either Ren. I thought the Grimm Express would've come through for sure!" The bubbly girl continued her nearly one-sided back and forth with her apparent partner.

"Did you really just ride an Ursa?" Yang spoke with some incredulity, though it was tainted with humor.

As Yang began conversing with the Chatterbox, Wolf had passed her by and was on his way to the semi-collapsed stone building.

The black-bowed-and-haired girl seemed to keep an eye on him as he moved past her partner and herself as she noted to some disquiet how silently he moved despite the obvious heavy armor he was wore - she could still hear his footfalls on the grass but they were muted; the metal joints and plates, however, did not scrape nor bump each other as he made his way.

It was a tad disconcerting.

As the rambunctious orangette said something that had made Yang laugh, her attention seemed to have shifted once more as she zoomed past the Spartan and into the structure. Of course, with her own departure from the group, the eyes all turned in her fleeing direction to note that the big black armored guy had at some point slipped passed them.

Pyrrha moved to join Six even as the other male - Ren - moved at what seemed to be a resigned jog after his own partner, who was now kicking up a fuss inside the ruins - something about being queen of the castle, Six overheard.

"It would seem cave didn't contain the ruins, after all. Though it seems fortune smiled on us in the end, if this is where the relics truly lie." Pyrrha noted with a nod, still a small grin on her face.

"If my luck holds." Six briefly thought back to the chain of events that led him being on Remnant and at Beacon; one confrontation leading to an avenue forward after the next.

Such is life, Six mused.

Entering the circular structure, Wolf noted multiple pedestals. Upon each, rested a single, large chess piece in either black or gold coloring. As he looked around, he noted some pedestals were empty.

Well, there was also one balancing on the energetic hammer girl's head. He assumed that one was spoken for, though.

"There may be more to these 'relics' than just retrieving them." The green and white clad boy, Ren, spoke as he too was headed toward a certain pedestal; one holding the same variety of piece that his spirited companion had claimed - a golden rook.

The youth had a much more level head on his shoulders than most of the others besides Pyrrha, Six noted.

"Four of each class. Some have been taken, however." Wolf added as he strode toward a pedestal, eyeing the piece thereupon.

Pyrrha was following the conversation as she too looked about the dilapidated structure, seeing that there were still two golden rooks, four black bishops and two golden knights still unclaimed.

"Mmhm." Ren continued, supplementing more of his own thoughts. "I would imagine that they are so numbered for a reason."

The hammer girl was now spinning around on one foot, trying to balance the rook on her nose with an irrepressible smile on her face - it wobbled back and forth precariously. Ren watched her antics with a look of slightly bemused resignation.

An odd juxtaposition, Six thought. Still, it seemed he had either rapidly grown used to her rather exuberant disposition or was already quite familiar with it.

"I have heard that Teams of Hunters are formed of four." Pyrrha contributed as she examined the same manner of piece that had caught Six's eye. "Would it be fair to assume that is what these are for?"

"That's what I was thinking." Ren nodded.

Six just gave a slight grunt of agreement as he strolled forward and plucked the 'relic' that he'd been eyeing off its designated pedestal before turning to Ren, noticing the orangette drop the rook balanced on her nose and fumble to snatch it out of the air, causing it to bounce around like a cat batting an object dangled before it.

"Any objections?" Six spoke up as he held the golden rook up with his left hand while turning toward the other three in the chamber.

Pyrrha looked over her shoulder at her partner, turned back to swipe the chess piece she had been looking at and turned back around with a smile, baring it in the hand of her shield clad arm. "I have none."

Ren just just shook his head with a lazy grin before turning to the hammer girl whose attention was held covetously by the golden rook that was once more on her nose. "Nora?"

"Huh?" She turned to look at the others in the chamber, each holding the same one that was she was balancing on her nose. "What're we talking about?"

Ren sighed and was about to speak up when-

"...eeaaaaddsSSS UUUUUUUP!"

The Spartan turned in the direction of the nearing voice as his motion tracker picked up motion suddenly entering the six meter range.

A red a black comet zoomed out of the sky and slammed right into the golden haired Yang, taking them both into a bit of a tumble.

It appeared the blonde had tried to catch the human missle. And she succeeded, if you could count being in a tangle of limbs a success.

"Ruh - Ruby?" She began after a cough. "Where'd the heck you come from? You okay?" Yang spoke as she freed herself from her raven haired sister.

"Uuuhhh..." The red and black scythe girl moaned in response as she was helped to her feet.

"... Um, Yang," The long haired bow wearing girl began while pointing up. "Does that answer your question?"

Six assumed that the blonde had followed her partner's words as he'd been more focused on retracing the trajectory of Ruby's descent; there, in the sky, was the largest bird he had ever seen; it was roughly the same size as the roided up scorpion he and Pyrrha had put down.

It had long trailing tail feathers - which seemed to act more like ribbons than provide aid in flight - , two odd clawed finger-like digits extending from each apex joint of both wings and the telltale bone-like armor plating upon its skull, like a mask.

There was one more thing he noted.

The white haired, white clad girl dangling from one of its large talons.

"How could you leave me?!" She shouted.

Ruby replied with something to her that, before Spartan B-312 had arrived here, he would've considered promotion of suicide to anyone not wearing both MJOLNIR Powered Armor and a Jump Pack or an Armor Lock Module.

She advised her to jump.

Apparently before jumping herself.

The Spartan was really beginning to think these people were missing a few screws or too convinced of their own durability with Aura to truly appreciate danger properly.

Her fellows may be convinced she would survive but Six didn't see the point in banking on it.

While the gathering crowd of relic hunters began debating whether she'd fall or not, Six stowed the golden chess piece he'd been holding into the compartment he kept his rations in on his left thigh and his DMR while he began running the numbers in his head of where the precariously dangling lover of all things colored white and her likely impromptu landing zone could be.

The inevitable happened and the girl lost her grip.

The Spartan moved past the teens with his head locked on the girl as she dropped like a fluttering ivory rock (or a human shaped bird turd) and positioned himself five meters from where he thought she'd land, dropped low into a bastardized runner's position and when his plummeting target reached a certain point, he took off.

He cleared two meters before he slammed both feet into the ground, bent at the knees and PUSHED, springing himself up in an upward parabola at the apex of which-

"Oof!"

-he caught his quarry in both arms, before descending just as quickly into thudding, small skid - his boot clad feet digging two small trenches in the dirt as he bent at the knees to help absorb the impact.

 _And people think I'm crazy_ , Wolf groused internally as he placed the somewhat dizzied sky diver onto the ground, feet first where she wobbled a bit.

"Uh..." The Schnee shook her head as if to clear her dizziness before her swimming eyes resolved the black metal titan before her. "Um, thank you."

Her eyes managed to glance just past the Spartan, beholding the form of her erstwhile partner and she immediately set off, tromping over to her.

"Are you crazy?!"

She seemed to be fine, so Six began tuning her out as she started to apparently verbally tear a strip out of Ruby; his eyes returned to the very real and looming threat in the sky; he unslung his DMR and was about to head out into the tree line for cover when he remembered his erstwhile comrades.

So, instead - while constantly glancing back up at the now circling winged abomination above - he made his way back to the group who mostly seemed to be observing the white posterchild of whiteness continue to lay into the red and black clad scythe wielder; Ren, Pyrrha and the bow wearing girl, Six noted, had their weapons ready and seemed to be more focused on what was really important at the moment.

"We need to move." The Spartan stated the obvious to the oblivious. Having her tirade derailed got 'la princesse blanche' to focus her still heated gaze on the much taller Spartan. She appeared to be about to say something, but Six was having none of it. "Unless you'd rather be that thing's lunch." He gestured with his rifle even as he scanned the sky again.

That got her and apparently the other three girls who'd been more into the drama than the several hundred pounds of flying death above them to also turn their gaze skyward and ready their weapons.

It may have been too late; Birdzilla was now swooping down with a screech more grating than the earlier mega-scorpion's. The group scattered somewhat - Ruby, whitey, bowey and Yang(ey) took off for the structure while Six, Pyrrha, Ren and-

"Nora!" The usually calm boy yelled.

-ran to the tree line, just to the right of where the Ursa had broken through earlier.

Wolf hadn't intended for the two sets of four to be seperated as they had but this way; though, if the two impromptu fireteams could act as a squad, it could prove more effective than one large grouping.

Still, it was better than having remained in the clearing, which was now sporting a line of massive feathers sticking out of it which the ginormous avian had somehow fired off as projectiles.

He just hoped Grimm couldn't understand human speech, because there was going to be some yelling involved.

"Okay, what are our stocks of ammunition? I have five mags of fifteen rounds a piece remaining with five rounds in my rifle; nine grenades total for my Grenade Launcher with one loaded in the chamber and two hand grenades." Six rattled off.

The other three seemed to blink in unison - even Nora - before the silence was obliterated by another screech as the massive crow flew over the once occupied clearing.

"I have eight rounds left." Pyrrha offered, her spear shifting into rifle mode.

"Two spare mags containing thirty rounds a piece, with ten remaining in each." Ren supplied, gesturing with his twin SMGs.

"I can make five more booms!" Nora added, gripping the shaft of her warhammer which - news to Six - could apparently 'make booms'. He was about to inquire regarding specifics before the excitable girl switched and collapsed the weapon into what looked like, to Wolf, was a grenade launcher.

As the bird of unusual size screeched and swooped over their position - causing the canopy above them to sway in the gust of wind incurred in its passage - Six shouted across the clearing.

"HOW'S YOUR AMMO?"

There was a moment or two of silence before a reply was heard.

"WE'RE GOOD OVER HERE!"

Right, well, that's not exactly very well... exact in the numbers department, but it was more heartening than saying they were tapped out.

Six's mind began processing at a mile a second.

There were two options, fight or retreat. Both held the very real possibillity of death. In the end, it wasn't really a decision he could make for the other fireteam as they were in a more exposed position, so if he advised running they'd be leaving what little cover they had and risk putting themselves out into a proverbial meatgrinder.

Quite frankly, he didn't have all the facts either; he hasn't seen exactly what all Aura can do - only what the Headmaster hinted at and what he'd seen Pyrrha do; from what was described, some rather rediculous feats of physicality could be expected - the scope of which, he wasn't even aware.

In short? He was lacking crucial information for which to form a plan; he could try to handle things as he always did, but there was a chance that he'd be limiting their offensive output in doing so.

He didn't even know what Yang's, the bow girl's or the Schnee's weapons were capable of; his quick precursury inspection yeilded some sort of gauntlets for Yang, a Japanese sword with a sheath that could apparently be used as a weapon in its own right for the long black haired girl and a rapier for the snowflake.

Quite frankly, he was flummoxed.

He looked at the three before him; they seemed eager to act, what that action may be he didn't yet know, but they were certainly not displaying the sort of crippling tension he was trained to spot back in boot that spoke of freezing up (not that there was any of that to be seen among Spartans).

"So," He broke his silence - which felt an eternity in his head but in reality was little longer than the blink of an eye - and spoke. "You all have the objectives?"

Ren seemed to know what he was referencing and tapped his leftheld gun against a pants pocket with a clink.

Pyrrha seemed to get what Six meant just after and nodded.

Nora didn't need to be asked because the castle piece was stowed on the same holster for her hammer on her back.

"Then we can make our choice of fighting or retreating. Either way, we'll need to assist the others in the ruin."

As if to drive home the point, the really-angry-bird flew over their position again, sending another gust sweeping through the trees they were sheltering beneath - it was headed toward the others.

"We fight!" Pyrrha declared.

"Yeah! No oversized flying chicken's gonna rain on my parade! Let's take it down!" Nora agreed.

Ren just looked like he'd go with either option.

Just before Six would weigh in, in agreement to fight, the monster bird let its own opinion be known.

Screeching once more, it then descended low enough to bring its talons to bare, carving up the grass and dirt without stopping its gliding charge at the ruined building. It was geared up to bring the ruin down on top of those hunkered down within.

Ruby and the others weren't just sitting around though, it seemed.

Yang had rocketed forward with the sounds of explosive gunfire in a near golden blur, catching some air before angling her wrist mounted gauntlets - which Six noted, apparently had guns in them (go figure) - so that they faced up before firing again, sending her down at an angle to the flying behemoth's head.

She landed with an audible thud and gripped a clump of feathers while straddling the top of Birdzilla's beak before proceeding to wail on its skull with loud, ballistic assisted punches. Her sudden assault seemed to stall the gargantuan raven, which even though it hadn't stopped its flight, had slowed its charge significantly and was more focused on trying to shake her off.

Even as Yang had sped forward, the girl with the bow had sent some sort of sickle on a tether - to which the Spartan guessed was likely another form of her sword or she had had another weapon stashed on her - to a pillar on the inside of the ruined structure before moving so quickly she seemed to almost blur herself, wrapping the end of the tether around another pillar on the opposite wall.

During this, Schnee emerged from cover while pointing the tip of her rapier at the center of the tether that now bisected the inside of the relic chamber; in conjunction with her pointing her rapier, something appeared that Six couldn't really make logical sense of, other than maybe some sort of floating black circular hologram with rotating geometric shapes - in any case, that anamoly appeared on the center of the tether, which was now being pulled taut by the remaining member of their group.

Ruby had lept over the stretching ribbon and then lept back and into it, feet first with her gunscythe over shoulder. The hologram seemed to be mounting the tension in that tether rapidly and Ruby herself seemed as if she was coiling up to strike.

All during this, Six, Pyrrha, Nora and Ren had burst back out onto the clearing moving in groups of two as per Six's direction; Ren and Nora moving up from behind and to the right while Pyrrha and Wolf came up from the rear left.

And just in time, too, as what Ruby's group had planned came to a head.

Ruby launched forward even as Yang was either shaken or jumped off the mammoth winged creature.

With her scythe held back behind her Ruby fired it in mid air, causing her to pivot while airborne - her side now being closest to the ground and her scythe's blade perpindicular to the ground with her trajectory taking her headlong into the right shoulder joint of the giant bird; with another firing of her scythe and the distance closed, the sycthe was propelled into a descending arc where it caught and cut into the meat of the abomination's shoulder.

The creature screeched anew - this time in clear pain as blood sprayed from where the scythe dug in, its wingbeats gaining a frantic quality as it struggled to try to gain altitude and dislodge the foreign object from its shoulder.

To no avail, as Ruby could be heard roaring in a way no male set of vocal chords could replicate as she fired her scythe repeatedly, the only delays between each spout of ignition caused by her cocking the bolt back each time, until after the fifth such shot she tore through the bone and sinew of the wing, coming down to the ground like a whirling buzzsaw, landing on her feet before leaping away in a flash of rose petals.

The second thing to hit the ground was the utterly huge wing she had just cleaved off.

The third was the oversized crow, as it nearly belly flopped, blood spraying like a pinched garden hose running off of a deep red strawberry champagne. It righted itself, somewhat, onto its talons but it was off balance from its dewinging.

The bloodloss probably wasn't helping either.

At this point, with both Ruby and Yang clear, the snow colored rapier wielder created another hologram, this time white with different rotating inner shapes, on the ground below Birdzilla's left talons.

From the glowing circle erupted jagged stalagmites of what could only be ice, incasing its foot and pinning to the grass covered earth. The ice climbed as high as midway up its massive leg before ceasing; it seemed to have taken alot out of the fair haired Weiss as she moved back looking winded.

Having made the beast now not only incapable of flight but also stationary - for the moment - , a change of plans was called for.

"Move up, engage up close." Was all Six said as he stowed his DMR.

Pyrrha just wordlessly agreed, shifting her weapon from rifle to sword and rushing forth to the bird behemoth's unstuck talon which was clawing heatedly at the dirt, trying to give itself leverage to pull its other leg free of its icy prison.

She stopped on her heel and twisted her body with her shield arm in the inside of the turn - her shield detached from her arm and flew the two and a half meters distance between her and the monstrosity's leg.

The apex avian was fortunate in that it had been practically flailing its free leg at the time so instead of having its talon cleaved off by way of massive chakram-esque action, it merely received a rather large and bloody gash.

By means of which Wolf could only speculate as being Pyrrha's Semblence, the shield boomeranged back to her waiting shield arm before she had closed the distance to within sword striking range where she laid into the already opened up leg with vicious horizontal slashes - obviously seeking to finish what her shield started.

She was joined by bow girl, who once more was wielding a katana; the two of them went at its leg like a pair of lumberjacks.

With swords.

By this point the blood from the missing wing had stopped flowing and had already begun to aerosolize, leaving no trace of it having been - save for the ruined stump of a once-wing. The overlarge crow was screeching in fury and pain, nonetheless, as it flapped its remaining wing, disgorging a flurry of massive feathery spears in Schnee's and Yang's direction, but its aim was suddenly thrown off as its head was rocked from a pink explosion.

Nora pumped two more grenades at the black hellbird, causing it more to be dizzied than causing it true lasting harm; still, it had its effect and Yang and Schnee were clear.

Ren was peppering the eyes with rather accurate rounds from his SMGs as he straffed the one winged abomination from the side, finally succeeding in blinding its smaller right eye and causing it to squawk in pain while still under the concussion from Nora.

Yang appeared to be firing off ranged shots at Ravenzilla's beaked head, each gout of gunfire precipitated by a punch, either attempting to blind it on the opposite side or to take its head clean off, before Six had closed the distance to his target, thus blocking his view of her.

Having stowed his DMR, he grasped the hilt of his Energy Sword and pulled it free, but did not yet activate it.

Spartan B-312 leapt up the beast's one remaining wing. One ton of armored, augmented human met with a few hundred pound of hollow bones, musculature and flesh with predictable results; the wing was dragged forward with his inertia, which of course almost caused Rodan's edgier cousin to nearly fall forward before craning back to stay up - and keep itself from snapping its frozen leg.

Still, this did serve Six's purpose, as he was now roughly on the opposite side to where Ruby had been only a minute or so earlier. He latched onto a handfull of feathers, even as could feel them being torn free from his weight alone, raised his sword clutching arm above his head then flicked on his Energy Sword with a burst of scarlet and a hiss of suddenly ionized air.

Wolf brought the plasmic blade down in front of him even as he released his grip of the wing, letting gravity aid in his action; he slid down along the width of the feathered appendage even as he cleaved right through it all - bone, flesh and sinew alike; all parting like a blow torch through butter.

He soon hit the ground in a crouch, the severed appendage landing next to him before the orange-red glowing edge he cut proceeded to spotaneaously immolate from the point of dissection to tip of the wing, leaving not even ash behind.

At the same time the hateful beast lost its remaining wing, Pyrrha and the long black haired girl had finished with their own appendage, slicing through the scaled black talon that had been both one of its few remaining weapons as well as necessary balance.

"TIMMMM-BERRRR!" Nora shouted at the oversized fowl fell forward, lacking any way of stopping itself.

Under its own body weight, and a crunching snap, it succeeded what it avoided before - snapping its remaining leg like the world's biggest toothpick, causing it to fall chest first onto the ground, rocking its already battered head off the soil.

Nora had sped around past Ren from the right side while Yang had surged forward, both approaching its last useable offensive appendage - its beaked head.

Unfortunately for the overgrown birdbeast, it was both too stunned to properly fight back and couldn't even mount much of an offense with such poor leverage and range of motion.

As Yang noticed Nora coming, she diverted to her right even as Nora came from the beast's right - placing them on a collision course with the monstrosity's head between them.

The blonde reached the grounded avian first, assuming a stance even as she slid on the grass within short range striking distance before unleashing a volley of blistering blows - they were all focused on the boney plate that protected the beast's skull (or was its skull), each blow causing lengthening spiderwebbing fractures before she cocked back her right arm and blasted it forward, with one final haymaker into the side of it, causing its much battered head to be flailed in Nora's direction.

As Nora saw Yang ready herself for one massive strike, she leapt into the air with her warhammer overhead and behind her; when the Grimm's head was knocked her way, she brought her hammer down with all the might of an angry god, detonating a grenade in her downswing and increasing her force - smashing the abomination's head into the ground before, finally, crushing its fractured skull.

Without any fanfare, the massive beast went still as it began the rapid process of sublimation.

As the whoops of Yang and Ruby competed with that of Nora's, Six returned his Energy Sword to its thigh mount.

He had only one thought:

 _I hope we have chicken at dinner._

* * *

"...onzewing. Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as... Team CRDL (Cardinal)."

The professor called out, his voice echoing off of the inside of the packed amphitheater - as the team in question stood before him.

Six, however, was only loosely paying attention as the Headmaster announced the members of yet another Team; his thoughts were still occupied with the final battle that took place a few hours before.

The capabilities of Aura, and of course Semblence, were not to be underestimated; the things he saw capable of being done would work wonders in the war effort against the Covenant.

The problem persisted, however, about his own Aura and why it had failed to fully unlock. With what he saw what his fellow students were capable of without even wearing a suit of powered armor or having been chemically enhanced, he realized that it was possible he may find himself at a disadvantage.

Aura just made that much of a difference. It really was mindboggling that the UNSC eggheads had never made any such discovery. Then again, the study of the soul would sound a bit too esoteric to warrant serious looking into - well, unless the relevant people saw what Six had witnessed.

He had to figure out why he couldn't fully manifest his. It was a weakness and he could permit himself no such weakness.

So, Six decided, he now had another ancillary goal.

Six was pulled from his thoughts as the applause had died down in the hall from the revelation of the last team.

As the aforementioned group departed the stage, the professor once more spoke up, this time gesturing the group Six was a part of to step forward on the stage toward him.

"Lie Ren. Pyrrha Nikos. Spartan Wolf. Nora Valkyrie."

The Headmaster looked over each of them, his eyes perhaps searching for something and apparently finding it as he continued.

"The four of you retrieved the gold rook pieces."

On the monitors above the the stage, the four headshots of the quartet were displayed with either their first or last names being shown by each first corresponding initial beneath them. The listed order of the four students then began swapping around to form a different four lettered combination.

"From this day forward you will work together as..."

* * *

 **XX**

 **First things first, yeah, I know it's a dick move not revealing the team name but I just couldn't settle on one. I received a few suggestions in PMs and several in the reviews section - of which I am entirely grateful. The problem is, I like more than one of them and I've become a bit stuck on which to choose.**

 **SO! I will be putting a poll up on my profile. On it will be names that have been submitted that I liked the sound of as well as a few I thought up myself.**

 **If a team name that was suggested to me ends up winning the poll, those who offered the name will be credited in the next chapter when the Team name is revealed.**

 **About the Team names - some are not colors; I am aware of that. The thing is, they are not colors DIRECTLY. I cite the following canon teams for doing the same: FNKI (Funky), STRQ (Stark) and even JNPR (Juniper) itself.**

 **Funky, according to the wiki, is supposed to be in reference to colors that come to mind in disco music. That's a bit of a stretch. Then there's Stark; that's more of a description OF a color, such as it being the purest and shocking form of a color (stark white is the wiki's given example).**

 **And Juniper? That's not even a color, people. That's the name of a tree that has BERRIES which are a certain color. That's several leaps in logic along the color rule.**

 **So, yeah, there you go; I will be bending the color rule because it is bent in canon already.**

 **Now, lastly, it will probably be another week before the next chapter and that may become my update schedule (if not bi-weekly).**

 **Which means, a new chapter every Saturday (or every other Saturday).**

 **This one really kicked my ass something serious and the battle scenes were harder to put down than those in previous chapters. Also, I'm not too sure I kept Pyrrha in character. In canon, she's slightly socially awkward and yet not; she's outgoing and is able to speak formally, like to crowds but at times she's not sure of herself or has some issue connecting with individuals as herself and not a four time tournie winner; it's an odd personality and character. Let me know if I'm missing the beat with her, and if so, how you would suggest me going about getting her 'right'.**

 **Anyway, thank you for reading and please drop a vote on the poll once it's up. And remember: You guys are awesome!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Well, it's Saturday, so it's time for your dose of fic.**

 **And, holy crap has there been a jump in views, follows and favorites. Thanks people!**

 **Anyway, the Team name has been decided. It was one suggested to me by Revysion.**

 **So, Revysion - if you're still reading - congrats!**

 **Anyway, not really any action this time. Hey. STOP looking at me like that. I told you, this would happen from time to time. It hurts me, too, really.**

 **So, without further ado - enjoy.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

The Headmaster paused, as if milking the moment, before concluding his declaration as the display above resolved the new arrangement of photos and initials.

"... Team Persian (PRSN)."

Applause and acclaim followed the professor's words. Whether the congratulations were wholly genuine or just rote behavior during such ceremonies was ultimately unimportant to Six; he now was officially part of a new fireteam.

Presuming it followed the template of the other Teams that had been introduced thus far, the individual whose initial made up the first letter of the name would receive that role.

Which meant that Team Persian would be-

"Led by Spartan Wolf."

 _What? That was hardly following form._ The Spartan was quite sure that it would've meant Pyrrha would be taking the role of leadership.

More raucous cheering followed the apparent promotion Spartan B-312 had recieved. He was of mixed opinion about his designated assignment.

On the one hand, he had helped coordinate what was now Team PRSN's assist - and first, yet unofficial - team action on the hellbird an hour before, so he was evidently capable of leadership.

In the field, back on Reach, he had assumed temporary command of detachments of Marines when already enroute to certain objectives.

In other words, it was a post he had filled in the past - though, only informally and by necessity.

On the other, it still was a capacity Noble Six wasn't entirely used to. It was also one he was rather disagreeable with having, due to the implied constant burden of responsibility it would add to his shoulders, having to suss out the best plays to ensure not only the survival of himself but of his three erstwhile comrades.

He was used to working with a team, yes; a team he KNEW was able to work together and also able to look after themselves in dicey situations.

The other members of Team PRSN, however, he didn't know their full capabillities; this was also likely their first rodeo as working as part of a unit. Unlike Spartans, his fellow students were a mish-mash of differing styles and severities of training; nothing standardized and, taking Nora for instance, of widely varying levels of maturity and discipline.

Six was far more comfortable being given a weapon, pointed in a direction and then ordered to reach a position some distance away, killing any and everything his motion tracker painted as a hostile therebetween and only having to be concerned with keeping his own hide intact.

The Spartan was brought out of his contemplations with what felt like a light tap to the shoulder from Pyrrha.

Wolf's eyes fell onto the group of three whose lives may very well be cut short dependent on his own future decisions; Pyrrha was wringing her right hand with a slight wince - apparently, she didn't use her Aura when she gave him that little nudge, while Ren was being glommed into near asphyxiation by an ecstatic Nora.

Spartan B-312 merely exhaled and, along with the air itself, blew his concerns away; he had received his mantle. All there was left to do was to fulfill it to the best of his ability.

He who dares wins and he who hesitates invites failure, after all.

He gave a nod to the red-and-gold girl before he and Team PRSN turned to depart the stage amidst continued adulations.

Six's attention, however, was diverted once more as the Headmaster spoke in a lowered voice - just barely above the crowd. "Spartan," Stopping, Noble Six half-turned to his addresser. "Ms. Goodwitch is waiting to speak to you outside."

Nodding once more, Wolf caught up to Pyrrha who had apparently lingered after he had been stalled by Ozpin, before the two proceeded to rejoin the rest of their team.

"I can't wait to get some grub! I wonder what's going to be on the menu?" Nora, who'd released her green clad partner from her grasp, seemed to be in the midst of another one-sided conversation as the Spartan and faux-Grecian caught back up.

"Oooo! Do you think they'll have pancakes again?"

"Nora, I don't think they would serve breakfast for dinner." Ren replied evenly.

"Breakfast? What does breakfast have to do with anything? I'm talking pancakes! Pancakes, Ren! You can't limit those glorious, golden-brown disks to just once a day!"

Ren just sighed while Pyrrha seemed to grin. Wolf, however, was leery of witnessing the warhammer wielder any more hyped up than she already was.

As the team exited the amphitheater, the Spartan spotted the blonde instructor waiting ahead of them. She - in turn - noticed them as well and broke through the fussilade that was the orangette's one-girl advocation of the almighty flapjack.

"Mr. Wolf." Goodwitch spoke, stepping forward. "There is something we need to discuss." Her eyes briefly lost the sharpness Six was accustomed to, as they swept over his team before returning to stare into his visor - once more gaining a slightly subdued yet undeniably flinty edge.

Her voice, however, from the very start held a hint of steel to it.

"It concerns your missing property."

The Spartan just raised a brow before turning to his team. Before he could speak, Ren, who perhaps picked up on the atmosphere, pre-empted him.

"I'll just get this one," He patted the pancake-fiend on the shoulder. "off to the cafeteria, then."

"Ah," Pyrrha cut in, turning to the Spartan. "I am... quite famished myself." She added while taking a few steps away and giving a nod.

The three headed off in the direction of the main buildings while Nora could be heard audibly voicing her assertion that the "bossman was busted!".

Wolf's helmeted gaze returned fully to the bespectacled blonde as she stood in a somewhat stiff stance, the right index finger of the same hand tapping on the handle of her currently belted riding crop.

"I do not trust you." She started, her eyes attempting to pierce the silvery, reflective reinforced glass of Six's visor. "I heard your... assertions as you made them through the door in the Headmaster's office. They are as rediculous as they are incredible."

 _Yeah,_ he scoffed inwardly, _I imagine they would be._

There was a brief silence as the Spartan observed her body language - from what it said, she was hardly readying to attack him. Well, at least not in the conventional sense; he still had little idea how her Semblance worked (or Semblance in general), so he made sure to pay special attention to her right arm - specifically, the forearm and below and the musclegroups therein.

She was firmly within reach; if she tried anything - Semblance or no -, she would find out what it meant to tangle with a power armored Spartan who scored at the top of his class in CQC (Close Quarters Combat).

"What it boils down to is, I don't know you. I _don't_ like not knowing if someone, especially among my students, could pose a danger to them; I cannot trust someone I do. Not. Know."

Goodwitch held her unyielding gaze a moment longer before sighing, her shoulders losing a measure of their previous tension.

"The Headmaster, however, has decided to afford you an amount of his own confidence." She furrowed her brows lightly, looking as if she was getting a migraine and was struggling to not rub at her temples.

"And if he has seen fit to grant you such, I would be remiss... to not at the very least attempt to extend to you a token of the same."

It didn't appear to Six that what she said felt to her so much as pulling teeth - what with her facial expression, but more along the lines of a very stubborn person twisting their own arm in an effort to not appear lacking.

"So, Mr. Wolf," She continued, though it was almost as if she were beginning again fresh, gesturing him with her right hand as she turned away from the main hall and set off in the direction of the Academy's main building and Tower. "follow me. We need to discuss your errant item."

The Spartan just cocked a brow slightly at her change in tone as he trailed her, keeping behind her and to the left.

As Six was led past the monument that was in the center of the courtyard - halfway between the amphitheater and the tower complex, he took a moment to better scrutinize it.

It depicted a hill upon which two human figures - one male, the other female were standing, staring down from the lip of it as if in defiance with weapons drawn, while a single Beowolf was below the rise, leering up at them - poised as if ready to pounce.

Perhaps an analogue to facing one's fears and rising above them.

The courtyard now behind them as they entered the main building, Wolf followed the caped instructor into and past the foyer, and down the hall that led into the Tower proper.

Rather than continue down to the elevator that led up to the Headmaster's office, Goodwitch deviated to a short path that veered off from the hallway to the right, terminating in a set of automated, steel double doors.

Flashing her scroll in front of some sensor-laden panel near the sealed entryway, the six inch thick metal doors parted into recesses in the walls and the two entered the darkened room beyond - the sound of the doors sliding shut behind them with a hiss of hydraulics was the only noise of note as the Spartan took in the enterior of the chamber he'd been led into.

As the once dark room lit up upon entry, Six found himself in a room that was shaped like a near circle; monitor banks, divided into pairs, lined the curving walls with a lesser amount of floor mounted stools arranged in an equidistant fashion between every pair of them.

The lighting in the room was provided by recessed triangular fixtures in the ceiling above that seemed to form some sort of design, which offered a subdued blue hue to the chamber. Arrayed around the lights were several domed security cameras - on a seemingly constant swivel.

As his footfalls made a slight clinking reverberation with the flooring beneath him, Wolf cast his gaze down to which - at first glance - appeared to be smooth, deep green tiled floor. Upon zooming in on its make-up with his visor, however, he found that that was not so. He raised a brow, noting its composition was apparently a network of small, honeycombed unlit lenses that seemed to span the entirety of the room's floor.

In the center of the room, was a half-pillar that looked to be constructed of gray stone and blue metal; there were electronic components tastefully extending into and out of the structure and a flat disk-like shape 'capping' it, with an inset, dimly glowing, clear blue dome at the top - perhaps an even larger lens, Six mused. The construct came to about waist height for the Spartan.

Despite the obvious - that the room was usually staffed or in use by multiple persons - he and the bespectacled woman were the only two current occupants.

Until they weren't.

Once the two had passed a certain distance from the doors, the image of a five and a half foot tall young woman with long black hair done up in a bun flickered into view, standing next to the cylindrical object in the middle of the room, her hands crossed behind her back and her head at a tilt, a small smile on her face. Her transparent form was reminiscent of a student of the acadamy - if the uniform she wore was anything to go by; a longsleeved black jacket that covered a white dress shirt and black tie served as her top, while a knee-length red plaid skirt and black stocking clad legs terminated in brown dress shoes that made up her lower half.

Her whole countenance emitted a soft and deep blue-purplish glow.

"Greetings, Miss Goodwitch." The figure's dark blue eyes locked onto the so-named blonde as she spoke evenly. "How may I assist you today?"

His brows raising for what must of been a record of so many times in one day, Six scrutinized the projection before them.

 _Could it really be this easy?_ He thought.

He had an assumption as to what 'she' was, but dare he try to confirm it with one who already espoused no small shortage of mistrust in him and his origin?

His cold rationality that demanded prudence clashed with his fiery determination to move forward with his plans with the chance this event permitted.

Fire consumed ice and a thought once again solidified in Wolf's mind:

 _To hell with it._

"Is that an AI?" Six broke in before the bespectacled instructor could speak, his voice calm and revealing none of his expectation.

Raising a golden brow of her own, her mouth already slightly open as she turned to regard Six over her shoulder.

" 'An' AI?" She started before shaking her head slightly. "This is _the_ CCT AI. That is to say, the holographic representation of it." She turned back to what was apparently the target of one of Six's designs before continuing.

"Please bring up the map of the continent of Sanus, " A soon as the final consonant fell, the AI's 'form' disappeared and the cylindrical construct appeared to 'come to life' with multiple blinking green and white lights along its blue metal sides as the dome on the top of it lit up. Above it, a large holographic, oblong, almost U-shape resolved itself - a land mass arranged in the formation Six recognized from the map Tucker had provided. The instructor continued as she moved nearer to the representation. "Vale regions. Display known settlements."

Most of the displayed image of the continent was suddenly cut away, leaving a mere square section of what had been the eastern portion of the landmass. The square then grew in size, filling the same amount of space the previous image had earlier occupied as more detail was rendered in the current image.

Even as Wolf noted its slight three dimensional 'surface', he was more aware of the longitudinal and latitudinal lines that this current representation showed.

Idly, he compared what he was seeing now to the snapshot of Tucker's map, overlaying the two in his visor; noting the deviation of the apparent tilt of the planet presented by the criss-crossing gridwork he factored that as the reason he and Pyrrha ended up so off course back in the Emerald Forest.

As the features of the projection received further resolution, the blonde instructor turned back to Six while taking a step away from the hovering assembly of light - her Scroll out and expanded in her left hand.

Gesturing with her right hand and tapping her forefinger through a small, bold, black square icon on the semi-transparent display, Goodwitch spoke. "Here is the settlement of Arca Spina."

The Spartan noted that it was but one of twenty two such icons that were varying distances and directions from Vale itself; all but three other had the additions of red X's through them.

He could easily surmise what that meant.

"Tomorrow, after classes, the Headmaster has approved of the use of a Bullhead in aiding you in the retrieval of your property. That is, assuming you know its general location."

After a moment of scrutinizing some menus on his HUD and referencing the holomap while running some calculations, Six stepped forward to the cylindrical holographic display module, raising his own hand to a position to the southwest of where Goodwitch had indicated.

Likewise, he 'tapped' on the floating amalgamation of light, feeling a small tingle as he did so - his shield flaring briefly along the tip of his finger but not reducing its charge any. _Odd._

To anyone else looking at a map of where the Spartan had designated, it would seem like an unremarkable portion of the wide forests shown with the only notable detail in its vicinity being a small tributary to the north of it.

Six was positive of the location he had indicated. His armor's systems kept logs of distance covered as well as the direction traveled in accordance to his nav system; this was intended to aid in providing more information during debriefings.

Of course, the day's earlier romp through the Emerald Forest would be lacking some of that information corresponding to the time of the jamming, but it was still logged.

Nonetheless, Wolf had merely needed to run the numbers in reverse to pinpoint the area he had first set down on Remnant.

Unless it had been discovered in the time since he had left it, there was no doubt.

"The Pod is there." He said with certainty, turning to face Goodwitch.

"You seem rather sure of that." The flaxen-haired woman retorted.

"I have a good memory and sense of direction." Especially when combined with the MJOLNIR's systems, but that wasn't any of her business. Briefly, he nitpicked his own statement - he was a bit off course earlier in the day; still, things resolved themselves and now that he had the pertinent missing information, he could adjust his analog direction finding accordingly.

Apparently not wanting to push the issue further, Goodwitch levelled her Scroll and tapped a few keys on its screen. Wolf noticed that her Scroll's screen was displaying the same map and appeared to be synced to the one being holographically projected; the section he had designated was also marked thereupon.

"Very well." Another swipe across her menu, and the word 'SENT' was displayed before she shut the device, pocketing it. "The pilot will be waiting for you on the pad come the end of the school day tomorrow. Do not tarry."

The holographic map suddenly winked out as the pillar went dark once more, the 'girl' who was the AI reappearing between the door and the two corporeals' position - her posture the same as it was before; hands clasped behind the back and head tilted.

"Will that be all, Miss Goodwitch?"

"That will be all." The bespectacled blonde replied while making way for the exit, Six following behind her. The Spartan continued to eye the AI as they crossed the distance to the door.

"Of course. Have a good evening, Miss Goodwitch."

The holographic 'girl' simply faded, her deactivation lacking any flourish.

From what little he witnessed of it, the Spartan was forming the opinion that the construct persona was indeed a 'dumb' variety of AI - it had displayed no eccentricities despite physically taking a human form, not that that was any given commonality of 'Smart' AIs. It didn't ask questions of its own other than seemingly rote preprogrammed queries and it also seemed to entirely ignore his presence, something he attributed to Goodwitch having had her Scroll scanned upon entrance to the room; perhaps, designating her as the 'user'.

Though it may be too soon to tell for certain, so far it didn't appear that, should push come to shove, his military override program would have any issues. Again, assuming their coding structures were similar enough.

Still, though the 'dumb' AIs the Spartan was familiar with weren't actually dumb, per se - just very specialized and incapable of learning past their intended programming - they were a bit more expressive and aware of their surroundings than the one he just witnessed.

Wolf just chalked that up to the 'CCTS AI' being be a bit more stunted than that, even. Far more rudimentary.

In the end, his plans regarding it remained unchanged.

* * *

As the doors shut behind the Spartan and the caped instructor, the lights turned off and the room once more fell into darkness - a blanket of black only interrupted by several monitors that were still on.

At a glance, things would appear to have returned to as they once were.

But only at a glance.

The cameras which were supposed to be systematically panning the interior had instead been focused, with their lenses nearly fully zoomed in, on one particular spot.

The doors the metal-clad youth had exited.

"Hehehe..."

A giggle like the tinkling of bells reverberated from several speakers within the seemingly uninhabited room.

* * *

Once more in the hallway that led to the Tower's elevator in one direction and the main building's entrance in the other, Six and the bespectacled blonde came to a halt.

Turning again to the taller youth, Goodwitch spoke.

"You, along with the other students, will be receiving your dorm assignments within the hour via message on your Scroll. Good evening." And with the dismissal, the flaxen haired woman turned on heel and headed in the direction opposite they'd originally come from.

Six only watched her depart for a moment before turning and heading back to the foyer.

As he made his way down the hall, Wolf idly checked his HUD's clock - little over ten minutes had past so it was likely his team would still be in the mess hall.

Destination set, he proceeded down the leftern corridor, his eyes once more gazing out into the courtyard through wide-open, uncovered windows. He thought briefly on that; it seemed to be a constant theme in the archetecture of Beacon - the trading of security for aethsthetics.

Then again, he thought as he made his way past the open double doors to the cafeteria and espying his erstwhile comrades seated at a table, such a trend doesn't seem isolated to the premises; body armor seemed to be more tailored to one's individual tastes - noting the long red haired girl's rather revealing breastplate - rather than apparent function.

Aura, however, as the Spartan witnessed earlier in the day seemingly made full coverage unnecessary.

While Nora seemed distracted and put out by what was on her foodtray, Pyrrha and Ren had spotted Wolf - both offering a nod - as he entered the cafeteria. Not that spotting a seven foot, coal black-metalled individual would be difficult in the well lit food court.

Making his rounds past the unattended stocked trays, the Spartan grabbed one - loaded with meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans - and headed for the table the remainder of Team PRSN seemed to have claimed.

Even before his arrival to the metal and wood construct, he idly considered if it would support his weight a second time around; at breakfast, he had been seated just above one of the steel joints where it and the wooden bench of the seat came together, above a strut - where it should have been sturdiest - and still met with a groan of the joined material. He was also the only one who had been seated on that side and even then not for more than fifteen or so minutes.

 _Oh well, fortune favors the bold._

Seeing as a similar location was open next to the red-and-gold clad girl, he designated that as his posterior's target.

Setting his tray down first before seating himself - the latter action once more causing an issuance of protest from the furniture - Spartan-B312 joined his fireteam.

Depressurizing and seperating his helmet from the rest of his MJOLNIR powered armor, he set it to the left of his tray. The sixty pound piece of technology didn't garner any further reaction from the table but his unveiled visage did get one from the formerly despondant orangette.

"Hey, you were right Ren! He _does_ have a head!"

Six just lightly raised a brow, remembering a similar utterance by the youngest Castaneus. Unbidden, thoughts of the small family came to the fore and he idly wondered what they were dining upon - before his soldier's focus dismissed it as irrelavent.

The ponytailed boy gave no response while lifting a forkfull of pulverized taters .

"So," The faux-Grecian began. "Was everything alright?" Her eyes glancing over to the Spartan as he sliced into his serving of meatloaf.

"It would appear so." He took a bite of the shaped ground beef before giving some minor elaboration as his tablemates seemed interested in hearing more.

"Ms. Goodwitch just wished to coordinate efforts on recovering something I had to part ways with on my trek to Vale."

" 'Had to part ways with.' ?" Pyrrha asked, before seemingly rethinking her question as her brow furrowed slightly.

After plowing a smattering of potato-mush onto his fork he paused to consider how to keep the tiresome vagueness going. While he was willing to _lower_ some of his walls for his erstwhile fireteam, it didn't mean he would be _dropping_ them completely.

"My prior means of transportation met with difficulties en route and there was something of size enough to be problmatic carrying on foot left behind."

He brought the fork to his mouth.

All true; the Pod was Six's means of transportation before its systems had failed and while he doubted it weighed even half as much as an M12 FAV Warthog - meaning, he could have carried it easily -, at the time he wasn't sure of where he was going. That meant it would've kept his arms occupied keeping it on his back, leaving him unable to bring a weapon to bare.

Back then, Six had thought he was still on Reach, after all.

Moreover, at the time the inoperative Pod was just deadweight; he had seen no point in bringing it along.

"Oh. Well, are you certain you will be able to find it?" The redhead asked after imbibing some water from her glass.

Wolf idly noticed another quartet entering the mess hall; a familiar band of colors - black-and-red, yellow-and-tan, white-and-more-white and black-and-white.

"Fairly. I made note of the location." On a map, recently. "So, unless of course, it has been happened upon by others with the ability to transport it, there it should be."

Pyrrha just hummed while the quiet raven-haired Ren just ate his dinner peacefully; Nora, however, seemed to have declared war on her plate as she consigned more chunks of meat loaf to her ravenous maw with gusto.

"Hey you guys, these seats taken?" The chipper voice of Ruby Rose cut into the quiet that had briefly fallen about the table.

"Oh, come on Ruby, after we fought together," Her taller sister sat herself down on the opposite side of the table from Team PRSN, directly across from the Spartan. "we're practically family!"

"Yeah, the more the merrier!" Nora piped up with her opinion in between forkfulls of mashed potatoes. Pyrrha just smiled slightly while Ren and Wolf kept their silence.

Seeing no objection, Ruby and the other three joined their blonde teammate.

As the two sisters of what had apparently become Team Ruby (RWBY) began speaking amongst both themselves and the more talkative of his team - Nora and to a lesser degree Pyrrha, the black-bowed girl had withdrawn a book from somewhere and began to read as she ate, while Weiss seemed to have fallen into a silence with the smallest of frowns on her features, though she did offer her own opinion occasionally, especially in regards to the scythe-wielder - usually by ways of sniping.

Having the attention shifted from himself, the Spartan fell into his own thoughts of the coming day while eating mechanically.

According to the heads-up he'd received earlier, the 'official' start to life at Beacon would begin the coming of the next day and - drawing most of his attention - he would be having to part with his armor for a portion of it.

While there was the issue of feeling exposed outside of it - which he knew he would feel to no small degree -, his current concern, rather, his curiosity fell more along the lines of the professor being somewhat vague as to where it would be stored.

The Spartan had made the Headmaster agree to his terms that it would remain within sight, so it had to be portable.

Sure, he could lift his armor while out of it, but it would be treading a fine line close to his maximum lifting weight.

Six couldn't rightly imagine it would all fit into a satchel or a trunk; it was seven hundred pounds of gear - it would tear right through a canvas bag and would easily do the same to the leather of a large enough suitcase; not that he could imagine the example of the latter.

So, that left likely something large and constructed of metal. He imagined himself dragging a large armored crate or case around. _That may look a bit odd._ Wolf shrugged internally; he wasn't really concerned with how things looked, so long as the confidential technology of the armor remained so.

Still, he really should've pressed the Headmaster for specifics.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sounds of a choir of chimes - one such originating from within his left thigh compartment.

As he went to retrieve his Scroll, Six noted that the others at the table were doing the same. Due to Goodwitch's earlier divulgence, he had a good idea what message would be awaiting him.

Unsurprisingly, it was indeed a rather uniform message once again from the CCT AI stating Team PRSN's dormroom number.

"I was wondering when we'd find this out. Looks like we're in eighteen." Ruby began. "What about you guys?"

"Thirty six." The Spartan replied after having stowed his Scroll once more - breaking his silence for the first time since the other four arrived.

"How about we check out our rooms together?" Ruby suggested.

Upon hearing that, Six took a quick scan of the table, noting that he'd finished his plate while he was ruminating and, apparently, the others were also done with theirs; Pyrrha, Ren and especially Nora being done made sense as he'd arrived after they'd already begun eating, but the other four?

He briefly wondered if Aura had an impact on one's own energy stores. Or maybe the girls were just speedeaters. He momentarily flashed back to how quickly Jorge went through a ration bar - in a single bite.

"That sounds like a plan!" The indomitable Nora exclaimed with a smile, traces of ketchup at the side of her mouth.

Yang's eyes had moved to Wolf, a mischievous glint evident.

"Oh, I'm all for checking'em oW!" She cut herself off, looking beneath the table then at her sister with a pout. "Hey, what's the big idea?"

Ignoring her, Ruby just continued. "Were you guys going to get more to eat or..?" She cast a look across the table at the other members of Team PRSN.

"I've had my fill." Ren replied easily.

"As have I." Pyrrha offered before sending a sidelong glance Six's way.

"Likewise." He spoke as he gathered his helmet, reattaching it to his head with a hiss of repressurization, missing the blonde's look of dejection in the process.

The gathered rose from their seats at the table, the bow-haired girl snapping her book shut before doing so - trays in hand and making for the return area.

* * *

As the group of eight arrived at their respective dorms, they found - to their surprise - that their rooms were actually directly across the hall from each other.

Upon Ruby opening their door, both Teams were treated to the sight of a decently sized room; on the far wall from the door was a window and to either side were two beds each, side by side. There were also dressers to either side of the room.

"It seems a bit small." The Schnee commented upon seeing the living space beyond room eighteen's door.

"Aw, what're you talking about Snowflake?" Yang began with a grin. "It may not be a castle, but it certainly isn't a closet."

"Hmph." Weiss kept her mouth shut; clearly, she disagreed with the latter half of that statement. "I suppose it could be worse."

Ruby just laughed a bit, somewhat nervously. "Well, we should probably get to grabbing our stuff." She started, turning away from what was Team RWBY's dormroom and facing Team PRSN while stepping back out into the hallway.

Yang walked over to her sister and threw an arm over her shoulder, as if preventing her escape.

"Hey, there's no need to split just yet. We could make the trip together."

Pyrrha, who had seemed to come out of her shell somewhat during the dinner, answered with a nod. Nora seemed to be bouncing in place while her minder, Ren, voiced his stance in the affirmative. Wolf, however, had no things to unpack and had other plans besides.

"Actually, I have something else I need to see to." He stated, thinking that he could've made this trip earlier - before the Initiation, but wasn't entirely sure it would've born fruit.

"Aw, really?" Yang protested. She had yet to gotten him to open up during the nighttime meal and attempts to draw him into conversation had been met with monosyllabic answers; her curiosity in regards to the stoic mystery was really eating at her.

Six just nodded at the non-question before turning to his team. "I imagine we'll be sorting things out in our quarters; I shouldn't be longer than a half an hour."

Receiving a few nods from Ren and Pyrrha and a tilt of the head from Nora, Six turned back to Team RWBY, wished them a 'good night' and set off for the domain of the campus's local dwarven smithy.

* * *

"Big Guy, do you know what time it is?" An irritated Herrin Rost queried in a faux-saccharine tone from beyond the counter of the forge service window. Six thought to answer that factually but figured that the question was rhetorical.

He was right.

"It's bloody quittin' time!" The dimunitive woman spat.

The Spartan remained silent while considering a sarcastic reply, but he was once again pre-empted as the Forgemaster sighed.

"I suppose you're here for those grenades then?"

Upon receiving a nod, the woman stepped off the stool and went back into the maze of shelves beyond the counter for a moment before returning with a small steel case, about the size of his IGL itself. She set it down on the countertop and opened it, revealling twelve pipe grenades that were noticably different to his standard 40mm variety in that they each bore a thick, horizontal, red-orange band along the casings.

"As I said, I haven't yet worked out those Whoppers you are already using." Rost said, gesturing to the remaining quantity on his bandolier. "These Incendiaries are lacking a bit of their OOMPH and they don't have that remote detonation function, but still, I think you'll be pleased with them."

She continued as Six picked one such of the proferred ammunition out of the case to give it a closer look.

"I'd offer to let you use the range in back to test them, but as I said, I'm done for the day. You can come by tomorrow." She then fixed him with a glare that may have been more effective if she weren't so small in comparison to him. "And by TOMORROW, I mean during daylight hours."

Wolf replaced the grenade in the foam-packed case and shut it, taking it from the table and holding by its black handle.

"I will see you then."

"Yeah, yeah, get going Big Guy. Don't hit your head on the way out!" Rost said cheekily as the Spartan departed the forge.

He crossed the campus grounds in silence, for once not letting his thoughts wander as he idly took in the sights; the Academy at night painted a slightly different image when swathed in the encompassing shades of the night. If Six was poetic, he may have made some comparison to the duality of mankind or something.

Instead, the Spartan's eyes just swept about in automatic fashion, scanning for threats and noting more defendable positions as well as possible ambush points.

Not long after, he once again found himself in the dorm's section, in front of the now open room thirty six; it seems there had been some re-arrangement in his absence, as short as it was, as the beds were now each pushed to each opposite wall.

It also seemed his teammates had changed into their sleepwear.

Nora was bouncing one of the beds that had been pushed to the leftern wall in a plain white tee-shit and a pair of sky-blue shorts. Near her, Pyrrha watched her antics with some amusement from her seat on the bed next to Nora's; she was wearing a black tank top and long red pajama bottoms.

Ren just exited into the dormroom from a smaller connected room - a bathroom, apparently, from what little Six saw past the door - wearing a short sleeved black top and grey shorts. His daywear was folded in his hands as he made way to one of the beds nearest the door to the lavatory.

His eyes, as well as Pyrrha's, fell on him as Spartan-B312 loomed in the doorway.

"Hope you don't mind the arrangements." Ren offered.

The Spartan just shook his head, gathering the assignment of beds was females to one side, males to another; it didn't matter to him either way, though; one of those civillian things, he figured.

"Did you get what you needed done?" Pyrrha asked from her bed nearest the window.

In response, the Spartan lifted the case to chest height.

"Hey, what's in there?" Came Nora, her bed-bouncing having halted as her eyes suddenly locked onto the rectangular container of mysteries.

"Explosives." Wolf said blandly, walking to the bed he presumed was his and placing the container on the ground, near the headboard which touched the wall.

"I don't remember you making booms earlier against that big ole bird." Nora tilted her head.

"I was running low and the situation didn't call for it." Six started as he made way for where he assumed it was 'acceptable' to change, seeing as Ren had exited with his clothes in hand.

Once in the john, the Spartan went about disengaging the plates of his armor; he wasn't as hesitant to remove it so long as it was in easy distance from him. Furthermore, while a good deal of the MJOLNIR's protective ability came from the hardened surfaces and the shielding provided, the black underlayer was actually the backbone of the whole system; sandwiched between the shell outerlayer which he was removing and the padding closest to his body, was a layer of reactive metal liquid crystal; woven by molecular tools into a superdense layer; it was amorphous, yet amplified force, increasing the wearer's lifting capability and increasing reaction time by a factor of five.

It was also quite comfortable.

Having been trained to remove it in case of needing to see to minor field repairs, Six shed himself of the outer plating within five minutes, opening the door before gathering the pieces and heading to his bunk, setting them on the floor between it and the wall bearing the window.

While he was leery of removing all of his armor and leaving it in a setting he couldn't rapidly get to, keeping it nearby and only removing the outermost pieces he could live with. Still, he wouldn't sleep as soundly without it all on - it had basically become a part of him.

He tested the bed - as he still weighed nearly four hundred and twenty pounds - finding that it could support his still semi-augmented state.

"No pee jays?" Nora asked, once more bouncing on her bed.

Six blinked, and turned to the orangette - who'd just completed a belly flop.

"Actually, I suppose this would qualify." He replied, gesturing to himself.

"Wait, you're right! They look like footy-pajamas!"

Pyrrha couldn't help but bite back a laugh slightly while Ren just shook his head at Nora's antics.

The Spartan just cocked a brow; he never considered that, but it wasn't exactly wrong. The underlayer was esentially the most high tech, most expensive and tempermental set of pajamas ever designed.

"We should probably getting to bed now." Ren started before pointedly looking at Nora. "That means you too, Nora."

The so-named girl just whined slightly before burrowing under her covers while Pyrrha flicked off the lights before heading back to her bed.

"Goodnight everyone." The redhead entreated.

A round of returning wishes were her response - minus one from Nora, who had astonishingly succumbed to sleep already, snoring lightly.

The Spartan didn't deign to cover himself - the suit was temperature controlled and was pleasantly cool. Also, being swathed in sheets would make jumping to alert a bit more troublesome. Wolf looked out the window at the stars, thinking about what tomorrow would bring:

An annoyance, in the form of the inane classwork and an oppurtunity to make headway in his plans.

* * *

 **xx**

 **Well, that's that people. For awhile there, it looked like it would be Team Serpent, but some last minute readers made their wishes known and Team Persian was born.**

 **There are a few liberties taken in this chapter, one being in regards to team leaders and their placement in the team name. Truth is, I had the Spartan lined up as being the leader no matter what in my notes - team name be damned. Another alteration was in the vagueness of the underlayer of the MJOLNIR and its lifting capacity. Long story short, people? It isn't going to be the canonical double the lifting weight; whether it will be more or less, well, you'll just have to read on to see.**

 **My reasoning behind both of those changes? Author's prerogative.**

 **Anyway, thank you for reading and stay awesome!**


	10. Chapter 10

**It's Saturday; you know what that means.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

Six awoke with a start, his eyes snapping open as an unfamiliar noise cut through the stillness of the room. He quickly took in his surroundings; the features of the nearly 5m cubed cohabitation resolved themselves to rapidly searching eyes - no threats detected and apparently he was the only one awake.

Shifting his eyes to look out the window, it appeared the sun had yet to rise. His gaze then fell on the culprit behind the somewhat muted hum of a vibration; his left thigh piece of armor, on the floor.

Swinging his legs over the edge of his bed and onto the floor, he knelt down to retrieve the offending armor piece, opening it and retrieving the perpetrator of the noise therein - his Scroll.

Unfurling the communication device, he found he had another message; apparently, the Headmaster was awake, as he was the sender. As for the message itself, it simply stated:

'Your uniform will be waiting for you in the Training Hall's locker room in locker 312. The locker itself will serve as the means to stow your armor. Know that these lockers aren't your standard variety - they can be summoned via your Scroll to your location with the second of the following codes, the first of which being your locker's combination, which you can change at your descretion.

The Training Halls, however, will not be open until after eight in the morning, but that will be fine as the class photo will not be until after lunch and it will be taken outside, so you can call the locker to the shooting site and thus keep your eyes on it - as agreed.'

Six quirked a brow at the idea of a 'summonable locker' but presumed he'd understand once he tried the remote function later on as he looked below the message at the codes themselves, committing them to memory.

Dismissing his curiosity for now, he replaced the Scroll into the thigh compartment and took another look around the room - no one else had been roused from their forty winks; he thought on that a moment.

Unlike his teammates, Wolf hadn't succumbed to slumber for some hours after laying down; his hyperalert state had only been exascerbated by lacking the reassurance being encompassed by an energy shield and several more inches of titanium plate offered.

When he'd checked his Scroll he'd noted it was a few minutes past five.

Due to the present time, the Spartan doubted the Forgemaster was at her station, so he had some time to kill before heading out to test fire one of the newly acquired grenades.

He decided to get cleaned up.

Collecting the rest of his armor from the floor, Six headed off to accomplish just that.

While the underlayer of the MJOLNIR remained at a pleasantly cool temperature (in normal climates) and therefore made sweating negligible, it couldn't be stated he didn't sweat at all; the lining of the bodysuit, however, reabsorbed moisture and the minerals lost through perspiration or the passage of other liquids, keeping him dry.

In addition, the lost nutrients later were reintroduced through the skin along with the cooling effect and osmosis, but that was another matter entirely.

In short, it kept him relatively clean for what amounted to a high-tech, non-porous, skin-tight onesie.

Still, the Spartan figured he could go for a shower.

* * *

After drying himself, he collected his armor; dawning first his trunks and tank top before proceeding to slide on his armor's underlayer.

 _Should probably get these washed soon. How is laundry handled here, anyway? Oh well, it's not like I have any spares. Going to need to look into remedying that._

Spartan-B312 then began devising a cunning plan to acquire more underclothes, one that would put the top minds of the UNSC to shame.

He was... going to go shopping.

Six blinked.

 _That's another thing; my stipend has apparently arrived and yet I've not actually received anything._

He shrugged internally.

 _Yet another thing to look into._

The drips of residual water from the shower head, and the tinny snaps and muted hisses that accompanied the pressurization and rescaling of the MJOLNIR hard points to fit his bodysuit clad form, were the only disturbances to the still ambience of the bathroom.

Six attached his helmet and he was made apprised of the time - half after five - just as he exited into the dorm room proper, noting his bunkmates were still in their beds.

Thinking a moment, the Spartan headed over to his bunk and knelt - sliding the ammo case containing the incendiary explosive grenades he'd been given yesterday away from the wall. Opening the case, he quietly removed each round and loaded them into the empty slots on his bandolier before reclosing the case and returning it to its prior position.

Taking one more glance about the room and noting he'd not awakened his team mates, he rose and headed out the door and into the hallway.

After shutting the door silently behind him, the Spartan turned to his left and set off, his stride carrying him toward the foyer - all the while he took in the empty hall with an alert gaze.

As he passed the end of the dorm rooms themselves, Wolf's eyes swept to his left; the ever open windows granting a near unobstructed view of the pre-dusk sky; a smattering of stars whose luminescence was eclipsed by Remnant's broken satellite; the light reflected off the shattered moon, however, was fading as the last vestiges of it passed beyond the horizon.

As he traversed the deserted corridor, the Spartan studied the elevated ceiling - noting a domed camera every so many meters.

Reaching the foyer, Wolf paused a moment, considering taking a right down into the tower portion of the structure and better scrutinizing the layout of its passages.

His eyes made a discreet sweep; there was camera coverage here as well, predictably. Also, there was a rather lanky man with green spiked up hair, glasses and a somewhat disheveled appearance pacing back and forth in the hall off in the direction of the tower, nursing a coffee cup.

Thus, Six decided against the recon of that section - for now. He would hold off on that until later, when there were more people moving about to mask his intent.

That whittled down his choices to four:

One, head left and out of the academy building and scour the grounds a bit to better familiarize himself with its layout, visually. It's one thing to have a map of an area and totally another to _know_ the area.

Two, he could keep his current heading and make his way to the library - and if it's open, see if there was anything of note detailing Remnant's history or at least more information on the kingdoms. He had already decided to look for printed information before using the Scroll as a means of getting his answers as he figured the CCT AI would be tasked with monitoring things such as search histories and the like, especially a relatively unknown factor like himself; it would be best not to have his tracked questions depict a picture of one who was looking to suss out weaknesses or secrets of those he claimed allegiance to.

Option three entailed reversing course, back to the dorm room.

Though a possibility, Six wasn't choosing that one.

The fourth alternative was to head back the way he had come and proceed to the cafeteria and see if it had opened yet - and if so, pound down some chow in solitude.

Whichever option he chose, it would have to occupy enough time so that he could-

"Move it, Bart."

The Spartan's thoughts were derailed by the appearance of the one he was intending to kill time to see.

The Forgemaster was coming from the hallway to his right. Earlier, when looking over the map, Six had discovered that faculty's rooms and offices were in that direction as well, beyond the Tower elevator.

"Ah, Miss Rost! Good morning." The lanky man - Bart, apparently - greeted the much shorter woman. "Fancy meeting you here. Would you like to join me for breakfast?"

"Sorry, but I have a few projects I'd like to make some headway on before the brats start pestering me and..." she replied, walking past the green haired man as her eyes then fell on the Spartan, who was still in the middle of the foyer. Her eyebrow twitched in either annoyance or surprise. "... and apparently, I have a date already with a giant."

"You wha-?" The man, turning around in the same direction as the dimunitive weaponsmith. "Oh, I see." He paused, coffee cup making a trek to his mouth before halting and returning to waist height. "Some other time, then?" There was some barely discernable hope in his voice.

"We'll see, Oobleck." The pint-sized Forgemaster shot back over her shoulder, having not once slowed her pace.

Bart scratched at his coffee cup with the index finger of the hand that held it before nodding to himself and heading off in the opposite direction.

"Okay, Big Guy," Rost began, a humorless grin plastered on her face. "I know I said to come see me during day light hours, yesterday. Can you not hear through that big tin can on your neck?" she asked, still not halting her advance to the entrance and exit of the building.

Six shrugged internally. Outwardly, he remained stock still, save for his head which tracked the approaching woman.

"I wasn't planning to head to the forge until after sunup."

"Oh, so this meeting is 'pure coincidence', just like ole Bart's?" She came to a stop before him, crossing her arms while casting a mild glare up at his visored face.

Again, Wolf just brushed off her antagonism.

"Considering this is only my second day and would have no idea of your schedule... yes."

The tempermental woman tapped her foot twice before nodding once, her arms uncrossing as she moved to step past the metal-clad seven footer.

"Point." she said with a sigh. "Come on then, let's get this over with. I really want to get back to going over those bullets you left me before I'm on the clock."

Six nodded and made to follow.

* * *

"Okay, same as before." The Forgemaster began. She was once more standing behind the clear blast shield in the back of the forge, near the explosives testing range. "Drop one on Mr. Pokey."

The Spartan had already swapped the loaded standard 40mm pipe grenade for one of the variety he intended to test, so all he had to do was sight on the painted plate and pull the trigger.

Oddly, as the grenade cleared the chamber, a vibrant orange stream of particles followed in its arcing trajectory before the explosive struck the pressure plate.

As soon as the round struck, a FWOOSH of displaced and instantly ignited air rushed out in a diameter of three meters from the point of impact. Even from his position of eight meters away, he could feel his suit having to adjust the internal temperature to the sudden increase generated by the intense orange flames than writhed along the plate and the floor.

The fire lasted for about ten seconds before burning itself out; the annulus of the inferno rapidly petering out from the epicenter of the explosion out to the very edges of its radius.

"Well, there you have it." Rost started, stepping out from behind the protective clear wall, a smug grin on her face. "Not as much kick as your other set but they have their own flavor of mean. They'll burn even longer if they come into contact with the fleshy bits of Grimm, though."

Wolf had reloaded another incediary before replacing his IGL onto his back.

"Thank you for your assistance."

Honestly, he knew he should've thanked her yesterday, but he was still so used to thinking military that common courtesy was something he had to force himself to apply most of the time - even then, Six was rather certain he was missing alot of the situational cues.

The short woman just rubbed at her nose with her left index finger, the grin not leaving her face.

"Yeah, yeah Big Guy." She made to head back to a table that had several pieces of machinery and measuring implements, as well as many different vials of colored Dust. The DMR magazine he had handed off was also on the desk.

"As I told Bart, I'd like to get back to cracking the mystery of these babies so you'll have to see yourself out." She said, waving him off over her shoulder.

The Spartan accepted his dismissal and departed the back of the forge - the heavy security door hissing shut behind him as her cleared its doorway.

As he left the building the forge was located - and since he found himself there already - he decided to survey the campus grounds like he'd considered earlier.

* * *

"I just can't believe it!" Nora spoke around a mouthful of waffle, her fork already poised to stab the vivisected square of fluff again. Unlike her team mates, her plate had a triple stack of the golden dish. "How can they not have pancakes, again?!"

"With how you drown them both in syrup, Nora, I don't see how you can tell the difference." a very mellow Ren commented as he ate at a far more sedate pace.

"That's because your tastebuds are unrefined! The hint of crunchiness-" the orangette began again, her fork depositing another serving of goopy batter cake past her lips. "-of a waffle is nothing like the rich, smoothness of a flapjack!" she defended, somehow NOT spitting waffle-bits everywhere.

Pyrrha yawned widely, covering her mouth with her left hand while observing the antics of Nora, a small and tired grin tugging at her lips while she picked at her own plate.

The Spartan just sat in silence while his team went about eating their meals, his tray and glass empty.

Six had just been finishing his own spread by the time his team had shown up for breakfast. It turned out the cafeteria opened earlier than he had thought, though that should've been obvious, thinking back to how the green haired Bart Oobleck had invited the short mistress of the forge to dine with him.

"So, where were you, Bossman? Didn't see you when we woke up." the energetic hammer-wielder suddenly asked after a gulp of water. The other two at the table seemed interested in the answer as well, if their body language was anything to go by.

"Testing the munitions I received yesterday." Wolf replied. "Then a walk around the grounds to better familiarize myself."

"So early?" Pyrrha inquired. "I didn't realize the Training Halls opened up before class hours."

"I happened to run into the Forgemaster before my walk and she allowed me to use the range in the back of the Forge."

"Hey, how do you know when the Training Grounds open up?" Nora got out around another mouthful of waffle, poking her fork at the redhead.

"Hmm?" The faux-Grecian's own fork paused mid-trip to mouth before she blinked and continued. "Oh, it was in the syllabus we were sent this morning."

"The what?" Nora cocked a brow after having finished her bit of waffle.

"The message we received on our Scrolls at eight o'clock, Nora." Ren supplied, calmly taking a piece of cleanly sliced waffle to his mouth.

"Oooh, that thing." the orangette began, sawing off another chunk from her stack of waffles, dipping it into the half-centimeter thick pool of syrup on her plate and transporting it to her mouth. "Yeah, didn't read all of that."

Ren just sighed while Nora happily munched away.

Pyrrha raised a brow while pausing - her fork upside down and between her lips before she took it away, settling the hand carrying it near her tray.

"How long were you out walking? The grounds are rather large."

"A little over two hours." The Spartan responded easily.

"Well," the red-and-gold clad girl started. "did you learn anything?"

Six considered the question; aside from a few more places that could serve as tentative choke points and locations that offered slightly better cover than others as well as the general layout of the property, he hadn't really learned anything truly groundbreaking - well, aside from the camera coverage being far less than inside the academy building itself (especially in the Tower section); still, the exploration had served its purpose.

"About as much I expected to."

"Oh," Pyrrha paused again, taking her last bite of waffle and chewing lightly before returning her fork to her empty tray. "And, um, what would that be?"

The Spartan debated how much to share and decided to go with his summarized findings.

"This Academy is lacking in its defensibillity."

"How so?" Ren inquired after setting his fork down and nursing his glass of water.

The Spartan could only wonder at that; could these students - these Huntsmen-in-training - not see? Or perhaps the young man was gauging his response?

Considering for a moment how to reply, he reminded himself he was now a part of a team; the more aware his team was, the better off they'd be.

This was not the time to horde information. At least, not on this subject.

"There is little in the way of cover - trees, outcroppings of rock and the like - and the land is quite flat. The buildings themselves are rather open in their design and, unless the material of which they are constructed is more durable than appearance would indicate, the shelter they could provide in combat would be short-lived; thin stone walls offer poor protection from explosions."

"You think Grimm would attack Beacon?" Pyrrha put forth her own question as her eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Hmmmm..." the orangette was stirring her last bit of waffle in the residual maple syrup that had once nearly flooded her plate. "I haven't heard of a Grimm that can make booms. Well, not indirectly anyway."

"The Academy spans the side of a cliff and sits on a plateau - it would be difficult for many varieties of them to get up here without being noticed attempting to ascend. Not that groundbound varieties like Beowolves or Ursas have been known to climb in the first place." Ren cut in. "King Taijitus and Death Stalkers can burrow but that's alot of solid rock for them to pass through to come up from beneath. That would leave Nevermores, and they would be spotted quite a distance away and could be attacked at range."

Six was impressed with the quick tactical assessment the ponytailed boy had given, though he didn't know what a King Taijitu was - he'd research that later if it wasn't covered in the 'Grimm Studies' class that was mentioned on his syllabus.

Still, from the responses given to his own appraisal of the school grounds, his comrades seemed to be either ignorant of, or overlooking, the other obvious menace.

"You are considering Grimm as the only possible threats?"

That caused the other three at the table to blink. Seeing a startling lack of comprehension, he continued - now thinking back to the short confrontation that ended with him being 'air lifted' to the Academy.

"The threats we may face will not always be of the big, black and boney variety."

"Wait, you mean like other Hunters?" the orangette asked with a bit of a puzzled look on her face - a bit of a departure from her usual cheer. "I mean, yeah, Ren and I have trained against each other and that's something we're gonna do here with others in the Combat Proficiency class, but that's just to brush up our skills isn't it?"

"So you did pay attention to some of the schedule, huh?" Ren directed at Nora before continuing.

Her response was sticking her tongue out at him.

"Anyway," Ren resumed, "It's been documented and well known that fewer than half of all students actually graduate. The rest wash out or... perish during their schooling period." He paused there, frowning, before continuing.

"Of those who don't graduate, quite a few end up joining the police force of their home kingdom but, of course, not all of them do. The rest either revert to civilian life, but I suppose there would be those who end up on the other side of the law."

The green-garbed youth took the last sip of his water.

"But I don't see why they would attack Beacon, unless it was out of some misplaced sense of revenge for not making the cut. Even then, that would be the lashing out of individuals; they would be hard pressed to even make it onto the Academy grounds - the same as the Grimm - without being noticed and stopped."

Pyrrha had been listening silently while Ren spoke, before turning to the Spartan, as if expecting a response.

Six concluded Ren's judgement was once again rather fair if not still somewhat naive. Still, to him, they were missing the obvious.

"It never hurts to be prepared." Wolf responded. "I would rather be paranoid and alive then incautious and dead."

That was all he could offer without going into why he believed Beacon could be an attractive target to at least certain determined enough individuals - individuals with similar goals as himself.

The Tower.

Or rather, for him anyway, the CCT AI within the Tower.

As for the Tower itself, its high likelihood as serving as the hub of the CCTS could very well be another reason it could draw attention; if it indeed functioned as the nexus of the interconnected system, accessing it would be pivotal if one wished to gain inroads to the outlying kingdoms' own networks - that would make it a rather juicy target for perhaps the criminal element (or spies) who may wish to use it mine data or remotely compromise the foreign networks.

This was something Six himself considered attempting, once - and if - he secured the AI as it would give him an efficient avenue of seeking out those with relevant backgrounds toward advancing the study of the Pod.

Once he recovered it, that is.

The table was silent for a good minute or two for varying reasons to each of those seated.

For Nora and Ren, they had recalled their mutual past and how the overconfidence of some had led to tragedy for all.

For Pyrrha, she recalled what little Wolf had spoken of his own home two days ago, and how he had spoken of it in the past tense - believing that to be the reason for his constant vigilance.

Suddenly, a chirping could be heard from Ren's side of the table.

"Well, looks like we have fifteen minutes until our first class starts." The pink fringed boy spoke while retrieving, silencing and replacing his Scroll.

"Right!" Nora immediately perked up. "Time to dazzle you in my uniform, Ren!" She said, as she rose from the bench of the table, tray in hand.

The remaining three, realizing they were each done, followed suit and they each returned their trays before setting off for their dormroom.

* * *

As Nora and Pyrrha headed into the bathroom to change and do the unknowable things young women do to get ready, the two males were left to change in the room itself.

Well, make that one male, as the Spartan didn't need to change until the time of the photo.

"I'll be waiting in the hall." Six informed Ren, who cocked a brow.

"Don't you need to get dressed?" The ponytailed youth inquired; his confusion was easily understood.

"I have received special dispensation from the Headmaster."

At Ren's continued look, he elaborated, "There are certain..." Wolf thought a moment before continuing, "concerns I raised regarding my gear as well as some issues obtaining the uniform."

At that, the pink-fringed youth just shrugged and proceeded to the dresser between his and Six's bed to retrieve his change of clothes. At that, the Spartan left the room to do as he stated and remain out in the hall.

The activity in the dorm's hallway had picked up significantly since he'd awakened. There were students coming back from the direction of the cafeteria as well as a few doors open with a few groups talking here and there while more still walked past him in the direction of the foyer - and classrooms beyond.

Still, Spartan-B312 hadn't seen hide nor hair of Team RWBY; he reasoned they could have headed off to the food court during the brief moment he was in his own team's dorm, but they would've had to move quickly to do so. If that was the case, they were cutting it dangerously close to the beginning of classes.

Then again, what he recalled from the previous evening and their eating habits, they may have time to spare after all.

That, or they were still within their own room.

He shrugged internally; in the end, it wasn't his concern.

Not two minutes later, Ren exited - clad in the boy's uniform of Beacon, Scroll in hand and swiping through a few menus as the door closed behind him.

The two males of Team PRSN flanked either side of the door as they waited in silence for the other half of their group; they ended up tarrying for another seven minutes as the two girls stepped out and into the hall.

Wolf briefly eyed their forms and noted the minute differences between the uniforms they wore and that of the CCT AI's avatar; their blazers were a dark brown while the AI's had been black; while the AI's shirt was accented with a black tie, their equally white dress shirts were each closed with a thin red ribbon; finally, their red skirts were shorter and bore a differing pattern and their legs were bare save for shorter socks, though their dress shoes were the same.

Of their 'combat' attire, only Pyrrha retained some of it in the form of the tiara-like crown that fit snugly around the back of her head.

As the door shut behind her, Nora preened with her nose held high, "Well, Ren? How do I look? Stellar, right? Outstanding, yes?"

The so-named boy only briefly looked away from his Scroll before returning to whatever he'd been doing with it.

"You skipped a button."

Nora looked down, seeing she had indeed missed one, causing her blazer to be slightly scrunched to one side. "Gah!" She hastily went about correcting her foible.

"Are you not going to change, Spartan?" Pyrrha spoke with evident curiosity.

Six repeated what he'd told Ren as the four set off down the hall first class of the day - Grimm Studies.

* * *

What could the Spartan say about 'Grimm Studies'? Other than that it was less about the Grimm and more about the unstimulating exploits of its instructor, Professor Port?

Not much.

Still, he endeavored to get the most out of the course as he could, even if the instruction didn't come from its teacher.

Seated as he was nearest the door on the fourth tier of the lecture hall, Six could easily see the numerous pictures of Grimm on display behind the portly professor. All of them he could recognize as having tangled with personally and each had been given a single-letter ranking beneath their names and description, from the C-Class Boarbatusks to the A-Class Deathstalker.

That is, all save one - the picture of a serpentine Grimm. He was reminded of the engraved depiction on the doors to the Headmaster's office - the snake was the same; a reptile that had a tail that ended in another head.

His excellent eyesight required no magnifying enhancement from his visor as he read the name beneath the pictured beast; King Taijitu.

Below its name, a brief description was given; apparently, it was - as Ren had stated earlier - a burrower, attacked solitarily and was prevalent in all regions save Atlas. It was also listed as an 'A-Class' Grimm.

 _Well, that solves that mystery. Now if the lecturer would just get to the point of his tale..._

Unfortunately, come ten minutes later, a point had yet to be made when Wolf's eyes were drawn away to a row on the lecture hall floor; the curved desk that the members of Team RWBY were seated behind.

Speaking of them, they had barely arrived in time, rushing to where they were now seated mere seconds before the ringing of the bell; the white-haired Schnee seemingly in a grumpier mood than she'd been the previous evening during dinner.

Regarding the white haired girl, she was the reason the Spartan's gaze fell upon them now - aside from her also not wearing the school's uniform, she seemed to be growing increasingly agitated due to the apparent antics of her team leader next to her. Miss Rose didn't seem to find the professor's long-winded diatribe any more fascinating than Six did and had taken it upon herself to amuse both herself and her older sister, one seat away. The Schnee seemed to be of other minds, as she appeared to be taking notes on Port's speech.

Well, she had been before for she began glaring at the petite ravenette. The Spartan didn't need any special sensors to detect the rising levels of hostility the fair haired girl was exhibiting - Ruby, however, seemed quite ignorant of it.

That was, until the rotund Port posed a challenge to the class; he had stated the virtues of a Hunstmen and asked which among the class felt the exemplified them, to which the snow-haired girl immediately rose from her seat declaring herself. As the instructor invited her forward, the Schnee sent a glare the scythe-wielder's way.

The challenge appeared to be a trial of combat, as the professor headed over to a cage Six had noticed earlier. Port asked if the rapier-wielder was ready - to which she answered to the affirmative - before lifting its gate.

The form of a Boarbatusk was disgorged from within, coinciding with a suddenly registered red blip on his tracker; the beast already was clearly in a frenzied state as it huffed and snorted, grinding its forehoof along the wooden floor. The Spartan wondered at the logic of bringing a Grimm within the school building before dismissing his concern - a Boarbatusk was hardly a threat to one who was properly armed, which Weiss was.

As each member of her team shouted encouragements, she stared down the hell pig which was preparing to charge, her silver rapier raised. That was, until Ruby voiced her own boost of morale.

"Yeah! Represent Team Ruby!"

"Ruby!" Weiss turned to her, shooting back. "I'm trying to focus."

It was at this point - this second of distraction - that the quadurpedal porker made its move, charging the white haired Huntress-in-training. It cleared the distance between them rapidly, Weiss only rolling aside a second before impact - swinging her blade in slash that glanced ineffectually off its tusks.

The beast skidded along the floor as it attempted to plant its hooves in a braking fashion, found enough traction as it leaned to the side and managed to turn itself around to once more be facing the still kneeling Schnee. It immediately pounded the floorboards, charging her once more.

The ponytailed girl, however, was not off gaurd despite not on her feet; Six obeserved as the muscles in her bent leg flexed before she shot forward in a defiance of physics, practially gliding along the floor with her rapier held at her side while still pointed forward, her arm bent at the elbow as if poised to drive her blade forward.

As the two came within striking distance of the other, the expected thrust came; unfortunately, it occured at the same time the Boarbatusk rocked its tusked head to the side in an attempt to gore the would-be Huntress - causing her to be disarmed as well as ramming her in the side as her weapon was lodged in between its curving spears of bone.

The Spartan briefly saw a shimmering white panel of transparent energy at the point of impact - her Aura, he assumed; it had spared her from being disemboweled from that viscious side-swipe.

The snow-haired girl rolled with the blow before lunging forward, attempting to rest the blade from between its tusks, struggling with the thrashing creature.

Once more, Ruby offered seemingly unwelcome encouragement.

"Come on, Weiss! Show it who's boss!"

The so-named girl actually turned - to Six's surprise - away from the very real threat to glare once more at her team mate and summarily suffered for her sudden lapse of attention, as the demon pig ducked its large skull before smashing it forward - its tusks slamming into another briefly appearing panel of Aura shielding in front of the snow haired student's gut, launching her several meters away.

Fortunately, she once more landed in a roll that ended in her kneeling again, though she was grimacing slightly.

The augmented headbutt had, however, dislodged her sword and sent it arcing behind the creature, though even while it was in mid-air it charged her once more, seeking to run her down. She leapt sidelong, barely evading its rush before sprinting past it for several meters, in an attempt to reclaim her weapon. The Boarbatusk lost its footing as it attempted to halt itself this time, sending into one of the desks and knocking itself onto its side momentarily before righting itself - snorting angrily all the while.

Team RWBY's leader once more felt the need to add her own two-cents.

"Weiss! Go for it's belly! There's no armor under-"

Before being cut off by a now clearly angry Schnee.

"STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!"

Six noticed the ravenette sink into her seat out of the corner of his eye but the majority of his focus was on the porcine Grimm as it unleashed a squealing roar as it leapt up into the air and began rotating rapidly before hitting the ground and blasting forward as a briskly rolling ball of death - a maneuver he recalled had been attempted against himself when he'd faced the fell abominations.

Weiss shifted focus back to the quickly approaching threat, flourishing her rapier as two light blue holograms spun into existence - one in front of her and the other above and behind her. The spinning boar beast slammed into the projection before her and was knocked out of its gyration with enough force to send it onto its back in a short slide, grunting in surprise as it did.

As soon as the porker hit the ground, Schnee backflipped into the airborne projection, which shifted color to black before she was launched forward at notable speed, rapier outthrust, like a white-fletched silver-headed arrow, impacting and impaling the Boarbatusk through the bottom of its skull - a single spurt of blood spraying out of the entry wound as more pooled beneath it.

In a loud, yet diminishing squeal, the beast died and the girl withdrew her blade while panting even as she flicked the remaining and rapidly sublimating fluid from its edge.

"Bravo! BRAA-VO!" the well-fed Port congratulated. "It appears we are in the presence of a true huntress in training!"

As she straightened herself and got her breathing under control she sent another glare Ruby's way as the professor continued.

"I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings," Port gestured to the board behind him detailing what needed to be covered in the book each student had been given at the beginning of class. "and remember," he spoke, turning back to the class at large. "stay vigilant! Class dismissed!"

As the students all rose from their seats, Six noted that the white haired girl walk away from the rest of her group. It seemed the lack of discipline in their team seemed to be allowing some tension to form as personalities clashed. That could lead to some possibly dangerous level of disunity.

Still, the Spartan didn't believe it was his problem to solve - if it came to a joint operation, like what went down with the Nevermore the previous day, however, then it was another story and he'd step in. For now, thought, he saw nothing wrong in letting Team RWBY get its own house in order, as it were.

Collecting his book and rising from his seat, he departed the classroom and waited outside for the remainder of his team.

* * *

"For some reason..." Nora began. "I have a hankoring for bacon."

Ren cocked a brow at his partner while Pyrrha spoke up.

"Not pancakes?"

"Of course, pancakes! I meant bacon AND pancakes! Could there be any doubt?" the orangette chirpped with a nod while a grin stretched across Pyrrha's rosy lips.

Naturally, Ren sighed.

The four were out on the campus grounds among several other teams headed for the Training Halls. They had passed the Main Hall / Amphitheater a minute or so ago and the oblong structure that made for their destination had been in sight ever since.

The oddly shaped building was similar in design to the rest of Beacon's structures; long roman-esque columns were spaced equidistantly along its walls as a combination of decoration and possibly reinforcement, while in between them were large sections comprised of black stone along the bottom (touching the ground) and a dark gray variety a third of the way up that continued to the roof, which itself was flat and also constructed of the black stone that made up the lowermost portion.

What made the structure strange though, were the large U-shape entrances along the roughly-rounded-rectangular building. From the Spartan's current position, there were two such entrances facing him and the others, but there was another that could be seen from his angle on the shorter side of the building. During his survey of the grounds earlier in the day, he'd circled this building and found its design symmetrical - meaning, it had three more entrances that couldn't be seen from his current position.

As his team climbed the black stone steps and passed through the open wooden doors into the building, they found themselves in an atrium very similar to the interior of the Main Hall. The were three diferences.

The first being the lack of an upper balcony for more seating - though the interior was expansive, it was a structure with but one floor. There was seating around the perimeter in a triple-tiered bleacher fashion, however.

The second being the ceiling was enclosed and, differing from his prior assessment, there was a domed glass skylight spanning the majority of it.

The final difference was the stage - it was akin to a raised, round-edged, rectangular platform one step up from the rest of the floor and was centered in the middle of the hall. It was upon which their instructor was standing.

The sound of a throat being cleared startled many out of their conversations and gaping, but Six had already concluded his inspection and was thus unmoved; his eyes already having been at rest on the form of Glynda Goodwitch, standing in the exact center of the atrium.

"Welcome to the Training Hall and first year Combat Proficiency. Please split up, boys to the left, girls to the right, and head into the respective locker rooms to either side and get changed." She gestured with her arms as she spoke clearly. "Return as soon as possible; no horseplay. You will be timed. Go."

The students, save for the Spartan, complied - heading off to do as the no-nonsense professor directed.

As the population of the hall was reduced to what he believed was two, a silence fell before the blonde broke it.

"Mr. Wolf, Ms. Schnee," Six cocked a brow as the bespectacled woman spoke, having believed the rest of the students had departed - then again, he hadn't seen her shock-white hair in his periphery head off to the right, so it made sense. Ignorant of Noble Six's mental stumble, Goodwitch gestured with her left hand, which now had her Scroll clenched within it. "please take a seat."

Spartan-B312, noting the white-haired girl had been behind him, headed off to the lowest tier of bleachers and sat himself down while the Schnee headed up to the row just behind him, but to the opposite side of the bench.

 _That was sloppy of me._

Shaking off his self-chiding, he went back to considering what was likely in store for this particular course. Judging from what Nora had said during breakfast, he was under no delusion as to what would be the focal point of this class - not that the name 'Combat Proficiency' left much to the imagination.

It took around ten minutes for everyone to finish swapping their uniforms for armor - those with more elaborate ensembles being the last to arrive - save for Pyrrha, who'd been the second to emerge from the girl's locker rooms; speaking of his team, they had seated themselves next to him, with the faux-Grecian to his immediate right, followed by Nora and Ren.

The flaxen-haired woman was less than pleased.

"There will be times in the field where you need to will need to gear up, quickly." She cast a stern gaze out among the gathered students before looking down at her Scroll and tapping it a few times. "Every team who had even one member that arrived after the five minute mark will receive a five point deduction."

Someone moaned 'Unfair!', but was swiftly silenced as the golden-bunned woman looked back up, a brow arched harshly as her eyes locked upon a boy seated on the third tier of the bleachers off to Wolf's right.

"Do you expect Grimm to care if you think something is unfair, Mr. Thrush?" It looked like the boy was about to respond before Glynda continued. "Do you expect them to wait until you are at your best? For when it is convenient for you?"

The boy went silent.

She looked back down at her Scroll, tapping it once more.

"Five more points deducted from Team CRDL."

The mohawked boy looked ready to complain before being welted one in the back of the head by the larger, steel with gold-trim armored boy next to him.

"Now," Goodwitch continued, as if there'd been no disruption. "here in Combat Proficiency you will be learning to hone your skills with your preferred weapon and style. To do this, you will be pitted against one another. Sometimes, it will be team versus team, but today," she paused, her eyes washing over her pupils. "today, it will be one on one."

She glanced back at her Scroll, sliding her finger across the screen a few times which corresponded with two floating holograms suddenly becoming projected from the ceiling, before walking off of the stage, speaking as she did so.

"First up, Dove Bronzewing and Reginald Redwood. Step onto the stage."

One of the two named, a light-brown haired boy who was apparently a member of Team CRDL, moved to the short set of stairs to his right to reach the floor; he wore metal armor somewhat similar in fashion to his fellow team mates, save for it being tan in color over a black shirt and pants. Clasped to his belt, which appeared to have a dove emblazened on it, was a sword.

The other to rise was on the Spartan's immediate left.

He was a rather unremarkable auburn haired boy; heavy-set and of average height wearing a set of brick red overalls over a white short-sleeved shirt and brown boots, he reached the stage the same time as his opponent while cradling two circular objects - one in each fingerless-gloved hand.

In the projected holograms, one resolved to show Bronzewing's headshot and a green bar beneath it - likewise for Redwood in the other.

"You will fight until one of your Auras is depleted." She gestured to the holograms and the green bar specifically. "Ready yourselves."

The tan-armored boy smirked slightly, removing his sword from his belt and taking a stance while the overalled boy slid a still clenched hand into his left pocket, retrieving a stick of bubble gum and placing it into his mouth, beginning to chew.

"Begin."

Bronzewing raised his sword as Six noted there was a trigger and an inbuilt muzzle on the hilt of it - a trigger he summarily pulled, sending a rather slow (to the Spartan) light blue, nearly white, round at his opponent.

At the same moment the armored boy had raised his blade, the heavy set youth had unclenched and flicked his left fist, letting the object fall and nearly hit the floor, where it hovered. No, hovered wasn't right, as the object which appeared to be-

"Is that a yoyo?" Nora asked with a tilt of her head.

-a yoyo was spinning madly on a nearly translucent string. When Bronzewing pulled the trigger, Reginald flicked his left wrist again and the yoyo shot up into the air in a near blur, impacting the incoming bullet and causing a small scattering of sparks and crackles of arcing electricity.

Clicking his tongue, Dove ran at the overalled boy, firing his gun-sword repeatedly, sending more of those white projectiles his way.

Redwood, still chewing away, responded by dropping a second yoyo from his right hand and with another flick, sent it forward in an arc to intercept the incoming fire. Both his forearms tensing in a rythym, as both yoyos zipped through the air before him, knocking the bullets aside - until one go through, hitting him in the chest with a flash and discharge of tendrils of tiny lightning, causing his Aura flared in a muted brownish-red.

Six noted the green bar under his headshot dropped quite a bit from that one impact; about a third of the way.

The impact caused him to stagger his movements a bit and caused his yoyos to collide, knocking both to either side and giving Bronzewing an opening as he closed the distance, raising his sword high above his head.

Then Reginald grinned, lifting both his thumbs up and revealing small cylindrical handle-like objects, one concealed in each hand. He brought his thumbs down on two small switches he'd been at the ends of the 'handles' while flicking both his wrists outward.

The inertia carrying the yoyos away from each other abruptly halted as they both suddenly exploded with twin gusts of wind, sending them - literally - screeching through back the way they came, right for Bronzewing's head.

Dove's eyes widened before he was struck in both sides of the head with an audible THUNK, causing his Aura to flare and him to stumble forward.

Redwood shifted his wrists so that his palms were facing backward and flicked them again, causing each yoyo to return to a rapidly spinning holding position near his booted feet before moving his arms for the first time, bringing his hands back past his hips before jerking them forward at the elbow.

The result was a double Walk the Dog, speeding across the floor to the stumbling Dove's feet - right as the yoyos were about to hit, the overalled youth clicked the the buttons on the handles again, causing another dual explosion of air to occur right at the gun-sword wielder's feet, sending him airborne for a few second before crashing into the ground.

The heavy-set boy then began flicking his wrists intermittently, causing each yoyo to smack the downed Brozewing in the face. The sound of gum being chewed with an open mouth and the THWACK THWACK THWACK of yoyo to the face echoed in the atrium; each subsequent impact causing the stunned boy to slide on the floor slightly.

The sound of a buzzer going off could be heard, indicating the depletion of one of the combatant's Aura. It didn't need to be stated who that was.

"Alright, enough. Well done, Mr. Redwood."

With dual flicks of the wrist, the yoyos returned to Redwood's hands as he blew a large bubble, popping it as he set off at a slow pace off the stage. Bronzewing groaned as he got to his feet, trying and failing to send a glare past his dizziness at the retreating back of his opponent.

"Well, that was... interesting." Ren offered.

"A rather unorthodox weapon." Pyrrha added.

"I wonder if he can show me some tricks later?" Nora supplemented.

Ren just cocked a brow before shaking his head slightly.

As the two boys had taken their seats, Goodwitch swiped her Scroll's menu, causing the previous two boy's faces and Aura readings to disappear.

"Next match, Yang Xiao Long..."

"Alright!" The cheerful blonde declared, leaping off from the bleacher behind the Spartan, flipping through the air and landing on her feet near the stage - a grin on her face as she began cracking her knuckles.

"... and Spartan Wolf."

* * *

 **XX**

 **Originally, this was going to have both matches and continue to the end of the school day, buuuuuuuuuuut...**

 **I decided to be a teasing bastard, instead.**

 **Thanks for reading, you awesome, beautiful readers you.**


	11. Chapter 11

**It's Saturday! It's also Sunday, somewhere. BUT! That's not important. Here's your fic, peoples.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

The Spartan cocked a brow as his name was called even as he rose from his seat; he was moderately surprised he would be designated as a combatant considering his inability to manifest his Aura. His surprise was only mitigated, however, as he recalled how the Initiation started off.

 _Clearly_ , he thought as he made his way onto the stage across from a smiling Yang, _the Headmaster had been aware of his Armor Lock ability._

Ozpin had, after all, during their first meeting disclosed that due to 'his contacts' he knew from which section of the outer wall Wolf had entered Vale; that meant he likely had seen camera footage displaying his subsequent shielded 'fall' as well.

Still, it also showed that the head of Beacon, and now his go-to assistant Ms. Goodwitch, were overestimating and misunderstanding his capabillities; they may have even mistaken it for a manifestation of his 'subdued' Aura.

Noble Six knew he would have to be extremely careful in this bout, and not just for the sake of keeping himself from being turned inside out by the buxom blonde who was settling herself in a stance several meters away from him.

Spartan B-312's thoughts began racing rapidly as the world seemed to slow to a crawl around him.

He had limited ammo in his DMR - the replacements of the 7.62mm had yet to be manufactured - and his IGL's standard rounds were down to nine, with the same issue as his rifle rounds.

He was leery of using the incendiaries due to the wide radius they covered, but as for its effect on Aura, he presumed it wouldn't be too harsh - that judgement having been made regarding how the rotund Redwood had taken an electrified bullet to the chest yet been spared being shocked thanks to his Aura; still, if he used his IGL, he'd be going for indirect, herding shots, funneling his opponent to where he wanted her.

Fire was one thing but he had no idea how plasma interacted with Aura - if the shielding it provided could shunt and deflect its intense heat or not - and he wasn't about to test it on an ally; that meant his Plasma Grenades and oddly colored Energy Sword were out of the running - the former would be forgone even if he found Aura could withstand the superheated energy, anyway, as he had only two remaining.

They were reserved for very deserving targets.

Remembering how the petite snow-haired girl had taken successive blows from a Boarbatusk back in the Grimm Studies class, as well as how Bronzewing had been about to use his sword on his opponent, Six felt assured that physical force would - and could - be bled off by the shielding effect Aura provided, which made it clear his trusty combat knife was fair game.

Then there was his massively augmented strength; when he had butt-stroked* the cane-wielding man who'd made an attempt on Ruby's life a few days ago, he had been greatly restraining himself and yet still rendered him unconcious with a quickly forming shiner. Six figured he'd just have to play that particular card by ear, while leaning to the side of not commiting his full force.

Finally, the Spartan recalled what little he saw of the blonde bombshell's fighting style during the Initiation; she was a mixed-range combatant who seemed to prefer up-close engagements and she was rather mobile, utilizing bursts from her weapons of choice - those gun-gauntlets - to supplement her movement.

Itenerary for the battle mere seconds away - which felt like minutes - was mentally drawn up: he would striving to end this quickly, keeping the pressure on and not allowing her to fight as she liked, facing this with an opportunistic/offensive approach; he would be limiting himself to the last five rounds in his rifle's current mag, the use of up to two incendiary grenades dependant on his opponent's position - namely, if she tried to keep the distance open - all in effort to force her to engage in CQC where he would bring his augmented strength to bear; his reasoning was due to logistics - he just didn't have a steady supply of ammo yet, and besides, he was quite confident in his own unarmed combat prowess.

"Ready yourselves." The elder blonde warned, punctuating the conclusion of his thoughts.

The Spartan settled on his plan as he noticed the projected holograms to his right resolve his and the blonde's battle data from out of the corner of his eye; he was somewhat shocked to see his apparently 'subdued' and seemingly inaccessible Aura was capable of being read by whatever sensors were used to detect for and quantify it.

"Try not to hate me when this is over~" Yang sang with a wink, an all-too-pleasant smile upon her visage as she settled her fists before her, the golden bracelets on her wrists unfolding into a pair of gun-concealing gauntlets.

The survivor of Reach just cocked a brow as he unslung his DMR and hunched his back and bent at the knees ever-so-slightly.

"Begin."

As soon as the last consonant completed its passage from Goodwitch's lips, the Spartan was moving, kicking forward into a sprint while firing two rounds at the momentarily stunned blonde-brawler, who made a hasty sidelong leap to her left.

Her response-time not being fast enough to evade the first round entirely, Yang's yellow Aura flickered along the front and side of her right shoulder, the deflected impact of the high-velocity round causing the joint to jerk backward and nearly causing her to lose her balance before she planted her feet, cocked her right clenched fist back further than it had been knocked and punching out with it at the briskly approaching Spartan.

Wolf took in his foe's movements as she made them, his chemically enhanced perception making her appear to be moving in a sedate fashion; when Yang had began to bring her right arm farther back he was already pouring more strength into his right leg.

His foot came down with ground-fracturing force, diverting his course into a diagonal advance even as the blonde's gauntleted fist completed its motion - an orangish-red projectile exploding forth and zooming past his prior position. The heat generated by the evaded fiery missile sizzled against his shield, causing it to drop to 97% even as he raised his rifle once more.

As Yang saw the armored giant juke out of the way of her blast and raise his gun, she began her own evasive maneuvers by leaping forward in a roll, his weapon barking twice more with two immediate and successive crunches of shattered flooring in the wake of her passage. Rising to her feet and spinning on her heel she was stunned to see the two-legged tank just a couple feet beyond her direct reach, his rifle missing, his body hunched and shoulder lowered, charging her.

As the blonde was in the midst of her rolling dodge, Six had fired twice again - trying to both trip her up and pile on the pressure. As the second 7.62mm bullet cleared the chamber, his arms were a blur, stowing it on his back as he shifted the direction of his advance again, lowering his profile and putting more bursts of strength into every footfall to increase his speed, pounding his feet against the floor in resounding thuds as he closed the distance with her, intent on barrelling right through her in a shoulder ram.

His eyes widened slightly as he saw her set herself after her roll, one leg sliding quickly behind her as she cocked her right fist back again.

Yang was in the process of plunging her Ember Celica forward, aiming at what was center mass of the metal-clad brute filling her view when he suddenly dropped into a sudden crouching stance - whisps of light-blue energy beginning to flicker and stream off him as his momentum kept him sliding forward, right into the explosive shell she released point blank into his helmeted head.

His head ringing, Six only held his Armor Lock for half a second after he felt the nearly ineffectual impact of the Dust round explode against him and wash him in its heat, before releasing it and a small, short range burst of EMP which brushed the blonde back a step, off balance; he really had cut it close and a portion of the energy from the projectile had impacted his standard shield before the Armor Lock had fully engaged, dropping it to 75%.

Rising into a hunkered posture, fists raised, from his suit's pre-programmed stance, he stepped forward while launching his left fist forward with carefully restrained force.

Yang eyes widened as she barely had time to cross her gauntleted arms in front of herself as the startlingly quick colossus's duke blurred forward; it struck her hastily raised guard with a clang and caused her eyes to widen even further at the force of it, as she was knocked off her feet and sent for a short slide on her rear.

The golden-haired girl realized she had to take to this seriously.

Her violet eyes bled into a ruby red as her yellow Aura surged into sight, licking at the air like golden flames. She fell onto her back, bringing her knees to her chest, fully intent on performing a kick up when she saw - through the small gap between her bent legs - her opponent nearly upon her again, both arms raised overhead and set to deliver a hammer blow; she frantically scuttled her attempt and made to roll to the right.

Her evasion was partially successful.

Wolf hadn't let up on his opponent and had been fully intent to wrestle her grounded state into submission until he saw the shifting of her eyes and first flickers of yellow light extend from her form; he didn't know what she was attempting, but he deemed it a bad idea to let it continue as he brought his arms above his head, clenching his fists together before sending them down while bending at the waist and knees, applying a bit more force than his previous blow.

His metal-enclosed, joined fists smashed into the floor with a loud crunching crash, cratering the floor and sending several spiderwebbing fractures out from the point of impact, just as Yang attempted a sideroll - the release of force and impromptu shrapnel launched her farther than her evasion would have taken her if it hadn't been augmented by the blow, causing her roll to quicken with quite a few extra rotations.

The Spartan wouldn't leave things half done as he immediately shifted his direction and made to close the distance once again as the blonde struggled to her feet.

Yang's Aura had taken the edge off of the significant damage she would've received and she could feel the massive amount of power that she was suddenly infused with thanks to her Semblance, but it had done nothing to curb the dizzied state her rolling voyage across the floor left her in.

As the world appeared to be revolving in a mad fashion, starting and stopping over and over, she could just make out the Spartan closing on her; she threw a series of punches nearly nigh-blindly, attempting to either get a hit in or keep a distance between them until the world stopped acting like a ship at sea.

The metal clad youth was having none of that, however.

He'd closed the distance with the clearly disoriented girl as she lashed out with an onslaught of blows - each wreathed in that golden Aura, that seemed even brighter than before - which he deflected out and away from himself with two small outward moving swats of his own gauntleted forearms, dropping his shield 5% per diffused collision, but leaving her wide open; seeing as she had shrugged off his previous hammer blow, he fed more force into two quick left jabs to her ribs while stepping into her sundered guard - each successive strike causing her Aura to flare more vibrantly while causing her to bow forward - before he cocked his right arm back, bent at the knee, then rocketed his fist in an ascending forward motion in an uppercut.

Yang's ribs protested painfully, even swaddled in her Aura as she was, before she was clocked heavily in the chin, sending her airborne for what felt like minutes but was, in reality, barely a second and a half, as she came back down on her back with a wheezing gust of exhaled air.

She could feel her Semblance drinking in the damage she'd taken but she was winded and still slightly dizzy. Not dizzy enough, however, too miss the armored boot coming down at her prodigious chest as she rolled for the third time - this time to her left, as the impact of the stomp issued forth in her wake.

She came into a crouch as her eyes once more widened as the black-metal-clad figure was once more in her face, right arm rearing back at his waist. Rather than try to dodge or block this time, Yang's rising berserker mentality had her cocking her own right arm back as she rose quickly to her feet.

The two combatants threw their fists forward, impacting each other with dynamic results.

The Spartan was nearly knocked clean off his feet, managing to only barely hold terra firma as he was sent skidding away on the very edges of his heels as they ground into the flooring, digging parralel furrows - his shield had utterly failed under the force of the blow and he had heard the groaning of metal below his chin as he felt his chest become momentarily compressed, causing him to take a rather difficult couple of breaths as his breastplate had been driven forward with the surprisingly powerful hit.

Having significantly less mass, Yang had been blasted clear off the stage lengthwise and ended up in a tumbling skid along the floor; her clavicle joining her ribs and chin in soreness from the impact, despite her Aura brunting a majority of the blow. She felt a mixture of sudden exhaustion and rising exhilaration as she struggled to get to her feet and continue - her blood was boiling; this was the best fight she had in years, much better than that skirmish in that club earlier in the week!

Seeing the blonde-brawler finding her legs once more, the Spartan shook off the slight light-headedness the lack of oxygen her wallop had left him in, reaching up to his shoulder and unsheathing his combat knife and hunkering into another stance even as his shield began recharging.

Both contenders, however, were interrupted by the blarring of the buzzer.

"That's enough." Goodwitch's voice followed the end of the droning alert. "Well done, both of you."

Six cocked a brow as he looked over his shoulder at the holographic displays - it showed both Yang's and his own Aura had been depleted.

Resecuring his knife to its scabbard, he made to return to his previous place on the floor tiered bleacher the remaineder of Team PRSN was situated upon. During his short walk, he mentally nudged his suit's self-diagnostics to assess any damage taken as his underlayer-covered fingers glided over the slight indentation in the center of his chestplate; the results were heartening in that there was no damage or added impediment to its functionality found, aside from the obvious cosmetic; _just another battle scar, then._

A few seconds after reseating himself near Pyrrha, his blonde opponent had arrived back in her previous spot on the bench behind him, having displayed a noticable amount of lethargy in her gait as she climbed the few stairs.

As the information from the combat exercise was being dismissed from the ceiling projected holograms, the familiar voice of the yellow-and-tan clad girl filtered into his helmet's external mics from behind and close, accompanied by a light pat to his shoulder.

"We gotta to do that again sometime!"

Six turned his head slightly, his visored eyes peering over his shoulder to meet with once-more purple irises.

He thought on that: while he needed to play it carefully, seeing the amount of strength the young woman was able to bring to bear and therefore the amount of damage she could potentially do to his armor (and himself), learning to combat individuals who could call on Aura was an absolute must in his mind.

Having faced bloodthirsty aliens wielding far more advanced weaponry than what he'd seen thus far and come out of it with only scuffed and burn-blackened armor plates, he came to his decision.

He nodded.

The smiling blonde leaned back in her seat and began chatting up her sister as the Spartan returned his attention to the stage and holograms above it; holograms which resolved to show the headshots and names of-

"Nora Valkyrie and Chooli Midnight."

"Woohoo!"

The orangette chirped, hopping to her feet from the bench before proceeding to skip her way past Goodwitch. She was followed onto the stage by her slightly more calmly moving opponent; her skin was sun-kissed and she stood at nearly six feet tall, with shoulder-length black hair partially hidden by a tanned hide headband that sprouted numerous long, white feathers in a sort of headdress - each ending in a black tip.

Her close fitting getup consisted of yet more tan colored hide, in the form of a sleaveless, open jacket and a short, black, tanktop, dark brown belt with three gun magazines hanging over each hip and long, tan leather pants.

Black moccasins covered her feet while her arms bore a black leather band upon both wrists - a single black-tipped, white feather tucked into each, sprouting away from her forearms.

Both girls took their place on either side of the stage. Green, excited eyes met eager violet as the wait for the go commenced.

"Ready yourselves."

The would-be Navajo-esque warrior withdrew two obviously large caliber pistols with strange grips from crossed hip holsters on the small of her back and flicked the safeties off loudly with her thumbs, Nora produced her own weapon - her warmhammer in its collapsed form - and extended it into its full length with a twirling flourish.

Raising her eyes from her Scroll, Glynda gave the go ahead.

"Begin."

"YEAH!"

Nora lunged forward as she swung her hammer up above her, firing off an explosive at just the right time to catapult her forward at her opponent looking for all the world she was about to hammer her foe into the ground like she was some sort of human shaped nail.

Midnight leapt backward while augmenting her backward egress by levelling pistol wielding left hand in front of her, firing off a single white round at the rapidly closing pancake-fiend.

Quick as a whip, Nora swung her hammer down in front of her, smashing the incoming projectile as well as a good section of the tiled flooring, though the effects of the round activated as hammerhead met with the ground, essentially marrying weapon to floor in several inches of ice.

The orangette wasn't too perturbed even as her forward momentum had her hands sliding along the haft of her now ground-locked weapon; her hands fumbled for something along the handle and the weapon crunched free of the ice as it shifted to its grenade launcher configuration. She only had a moment to recover her altered weapon before she was forced into a rolling dodge several more ice-laden bullets. She came up from her roll, bent at the knees and aimed in the general direction of her attacker and pulled the trigger, lobbing a pink projectile in an arc her way.

Frowning slightly, the pistol wielder leapt sidelong while firing her lefthand pistol again, sending her just clear of the pink explosion. Midnight ejected her clip with a flick of the finger of the same hand while swiping her gun through the air past her hip, the mag sliding into place in an impressive and obviously well-practiced motion before bringing both her guns to bear on Nora, who once again was charging her in hammer mode; her left pistol spitting out white projectiles while the right belched reddish orange rounds.

The PRSN member was advancing in a bit more erratic fashion as she began serpentining the incoming fire, adding in a few side-hops thrown into her charge, her grin irrepressible, even as one orange round grazed her side, causing her Aura to flare. Nora ignored it, having closed range she swung her oversized bludgeoning weapon in a horizontal arc, causing her opponent to jump back again.

Nora's grin widened.

As the orangette jumped forward again and she was upon her foe, her weapon expelled another detonation at the end of its over extension, the hammer's head now coming back in return swing in a blur, much like Reginald had with his yoyos.

There was a loud crackling smack as Nora's Magnhild collided firmly with Midnight's Aura covered side, blasting her away, sidelong along to no doubt tumble across the stage floor.

Outside of the orangette's view, however, the ravenette never even touched the ground.

Nora - unaware of that - arrested her movement and took a moment to check the projectors - noting her foe had but a third of her Aura left - before she turned around to resume the match only to be forced to duck as she nearly was smacked in the forehead by a thrown... pistol.

Locking eyes with her opponent, Nora looked about to say something when she was suddenly struck in the back of the head. The hammer wielder was made to stumble as the whirling pistol returned to Chooli's open hand with an accompanied gust of wind in its passage.

From the corner of his eye, Six noted Pyrrha seemed to stiffen slightly at the display of what could only be Midnight's Semblance. Thinking about it himself, it did seem somewhat similar to the red-and-gold Huntresses's ability.

The pistol wielding girl - her body momentarily surrounded in a bright blue corona as her hair and the feathers decorating her seemed to be blown about in a localized breeze - now held the pistol by its barrel and its grip facing away from her, flicked her grasping fingers and a decently sized curved blade extended from the grip while the barrel lengthened somewhat causing the whole weapon to now resemble a tomahawk - an identical transformation taking place with her other pistol as she raised her right hand above her head - in obvious preparation to throw.

Nora, having shaken off the slight onset of dizziness, was made to bring the haft of her hammer up to deflect the sudden impact of an axehead, which then reversed course in a rapidly spinning motion to its owner - who was now mere feet away, bringing up her lefthand held tomahawk in a precursor to a strike.

The orangette's response was to backpedal while redirecting her hammer's shaft from the previous blow to bring the butt of her bludgeon forth, lashing at the closing tomahawk wielder.

Caught in her other side this time, Midnight winced as she was knocked off course by the surprising strength of the blow. Her feet left the ground once again, but, she corrected her trajectory as she had the first time she was struck by the hammer; a swipe of her right tomahawk holding hand and a flash of her blue Aura and - to the Spartan's observing eyes - it was if she rebounded off a wall of solid air, her hair and the feathers about her body whipping about wildly.

Nora's eyes uncharacteristically widened as her opponent remained within striking distance and was unable to reposition her hammer's haft in time to block the now descending tomahawk as it slashed against her chest. Her Aura flared even as she was knocked back from the thankfully blunted force from the blow, the wind knocked out of her by the strike.

Now grinning in assured victory, Chooli reoriented her thumbs on her handles of her twin weapons, activating something on their structures as electricity began dancing on the axeheads.

"Well, this won't be pretty."

Wolf cocked a brow, briefly looking sidelong past Pyrrha - who had returned to just watching the bout with interest - to take a glance at Ren, who had just spoken, before returning his own concentration to the fight.

Midnight lunged forward, raising both tomahawks above her head before bringing them both down in a double vertical chop.

Which Nora met with her hammer's haft, once more.

Six was perplexed that instead of convulsing due to the untold voltage surging through her, Nora was now quite clearly grinning at her opponent as they locked weapons, arcs of purple electricity washing over her.

The orangette suddenly lashed forward with surprising strength, the haft of her warhammer colliding heavily with her foe's axehandles and knocking the tomahawk wielder back, nearly off her feet as she continued to stumble. Bringing her Magnhild up overhead once more, she leapt forward, bringing to bear an obvious overhead blow.

Though on unsure footing, the ravenette swiped out with her left hand again, bounding off a gust of wind and aiding her in her retreat. As it was she would be just out of reach of the double handed swing.

Well, would have been out of reach.

Nora's grip on her hammer shifted as she let it slide along until she was gripping it practically by the butt, firing off one more explosive as it was brought forward and down in a blur, culminating in a loud CRASH, the impact launching the ravenette tomahawk wielder airborne and across the stage to land a rolling heap.

There was only a brief moment of silence before the buzzer went off, signifying the depletion of Chooli's Aura.

"A bit excessive, Miss Valkyrie, but well done."

After compacting her hammer and stowing it, Nora sauntered over to her opponent who was struggling to her feet and offered a hand.

"Hey, good fight!"

The ravenette, who looked slightly out of it grasped the offered appendage and was pulled firmly to her feet and replied in a voice too low for the Spartan to catch.

As the two departed the stage and were enroute to return to their seats, the caped instructor went over her device, clearing the previous combat data and no doubt preparing it for the next bout.

"We will only have time for two, possibly three more sessions." she said, glancing up from her Scroll. "Libitina Ecru and Russel Thrush."

Six somewhat zoned out for the remainder of the fights, watching them - sure - but his thoughts straying elsewhere. He was trying and failing to make some sense out of the Semblences he had witnessed. How something as obscure as 'manifesting the soul' could translate to what he'd seen just refused to mesh in his mind. He knew there was little point denying seeing what he was seeing, but it didn't stop his the analytical part of his mind from trying to determine the how behind it.

The Spartan forcefully pushed his thoughts away - pondering something without any data on the subject wouldn't get him very far.

Wolf was shaken from his musing as two forms - a boy and a girl - departed the stage as Glynda addressed the gathered students once more, storing her Scroll in her skirt pocket.

"This marks the end of today's session. I do hope you have all learned something, even if you were not called." she fixed her glasses, slding them back up her nose with a dainty finger.

"In a half hour's time you will all need to gather outside the amphitheater for the class photo." the bespectacled blonde looked over her pupils; some - the more recent to have been on the stage - breathing a bit heavily from exertion while the rest sat up a bit straighter under her scrutinizing gaze.

"Do not be late. Class dismissed."

* * *

 **XX**

 ***Butt-stroke does not only mean to stroke someone's butt, apparently. It's also the term for the manuever Six used on Torchwic back in Chapter... uh... you know when, don't make me check my notes.**

 **And no, I don't mean touching his hiney.**

 **Wolf likes women! Well, he doesn't know he likes women. Yet. BUUUUUT... that's a plot point for later.**

 **These last few weeks I've been having to deal with life being lifey on me, but I will still strive to get these chapters out every week. Still, it's not impossible that sometimes this 'every other week' shebang will occur.**

 **I'll try not to make a habit of it.**

 **Anyway, thank you all for reading. Keep staying awesome and I'll keep writing.**


	12. Chapter 12

**EDIT 12/14/17 - Due to confusion over the last few lines of this chapter, I went in and tried to clear things up.**

 **.:.**

 **Not going to make any excuses, only tell it like it is - I know this chapter is very late. In my defense, there have been some rather heavy things going on in my life of late that, combined, cost me both much of my free time as well as quite a bit of my motivation to write.**

 **I've since gotten a handle on some of these issues and, fortunately, my muse has deigned to whisper to me once more. Now that I've found the time to apply its inspirations, I can only hope you are satisfied with the results.**

 **In any case, thank you for your patience readers.**

 **Standard disclaimer: I don't own RWBY or it's characters, I don't own Halo or it's characters. My permutation of Noble Six is my idea but I ain't making dough off it, so lay off Microsoft.**

 **xx**

* * *

Six followed the rest of the male huntsmen-in-training to their gender respective locker room following Glynda's pronouncement.

Upon entry, Six's trained eyes ran their usual course of threat discernment and tactical evaluation; the quarters were rather plain, made up of several rows of chin-height (for a seven footer) octagonal lockers, divided to either side of a clear path in the center of the room, each set in groups of twenty a row. They were arranged side-by-side and across from an identical set facing them past a long, wooden bench halfway between each grouping.

Set in the far wall, past the rows, was an open doorway with a sign above reading 'SHOWERS', and it was to that doorway that Six would be headed; the Spartan saw what he just gone through as training - and it was - and therefore was falling into the old routine of a post-exercise activity.

But first, he had to track down the device he'd be relying on to safegaurd his MJOLNIR.

As the smattering of his fellows broke off, Wolf eyed the first number of each row - indicated on top of the door of each compartment - as he walked through the center of the room.

Finding the 300s, he turned down that aisle. Six idly thought there was either no one else that had theirs in this particular lane or he was the first to arrive as he settled before his assigned storage chamber.

At first glance, the locker didn't particularly strike him as terribly sturdy and he couldn't immediately figure out what made it 'summonable'. As he punched in his unlocking code into the light blue holographic panel midway down its height, Six figured that it didn't matter much as it was only a temporary housing for his irreplacable gear.

The door swung open after the last number was keyed and the Spartan took a moment to eye the contents; a boy's uniform hung from two hangers, a white towel on another while a pair of dress shoes and socks lay on a small shelf above the rod the hangers were attached. Wolf figured it would be tight and would take artful arrangement, but his armor would fit - if barely.

After moving the shoes and socks to either side of the top of the container, he squeezed his helmet in between them as if they were bookends. He next went about disarming himself before disengaging the numerous pieces of the MJOLNIR and setting them along the floor around him.

Once he was only protected by his underlayer, he brought his hand up the front of his neck where an in-built, hidden keypad resided and entered the nine digit release code. The black suit went slack after he pressed the last number and began to sag slightly before he pulled it off of him, like a man shaped lizard shedding its skin, leaving him clad in only his black trunks and gray wife beater.

The Spartan then went about stacking the many pieces of his armor into the locker, bracketting them with his DMR and IGL, like some sort of rediculously expense and oblong Jenga tower. Completing this task, he took out the towel before divesting himself of the remainder of his clothing and tossing the two articles into the remaining room in the compartment before shutting the door.

The whole process took far too long, in Six's opinion, as he now headed away from the row of the 300s with the towel firmly gripped in hand and headed for the doorway the showers were supposed to be beyond.

As observant as Wolf was, it was totally lost on the him as to why some of the other huntsmen-in-training paused in their own sojourn to get cleaned up. The myriad of despairing looks he received as he passed by were a minor yet ultimately unimportant mystery to the Spartan as he singled out one of the unoccupied stalls and made to cleanse himself of what little dried perspiration may have accumulated during his bout with Yang.

As he scrubbed at himself mechanically with a bar of soap, Six briefly thought back to the fight with the blonde brawler; while he felt he'd had her on the ropes from practically the word go, he couldn't deny that it was all over the moment she was able to land a blow.

And what a blow it was; it made Wolf briefly recall a spar he had with Jorge. That titan was something else.

But back to the blonde.

If she had aimed that stike higher, at his head, she may have knocked his block clean off - or at least broken his neck; no small feat, what with the chemically strengthened bone structures and far more robust musculature the Spartan IIIs possessed.

The match may have been deemed a draw, but Wolf saw it as a loss on his part.

Once more, the Spartan confirmed to himself that he needed to rectify his Aura issue. He couldn't stand seeing a vulnerability in himself and lack the means to address it.

As he rinsed off, he rationalized it wasn't a completely fruitless experience; he learned the minimum threshhold of strength he could safely commit in a practice fight against allies without turning them to pulp and still deliver heavy damage; if he had to quantify it, it would be roughly a third his total. He also found his estimations to be true that his enhanced perception permitted him to outmanuever even an agile girl like Yang.

So, he figured as he shut the shower off and began to towel himself dry, all-in-all it wasn't a total loss.

Heading out of the showering area the same way he came in - stark naked - he headed back to his locker, once again ignoring the incredulous and demoralized looks along the way.

The Spartan stepped close to his storage unit - to block any would-be attempts to discern his security code - and quickly tapped in his locker's keycode. He stepped back as it opened and withdrew the items that made up Beacon's male uniform; a white dress shirt fitted with a red neck tie covered by a dark blue vest and a gold-trimmed black long sleeved jacket for upperbody wear while long black dress pants sufficed for the bottoms.

And the dress socks and shoes, that is.

Having donned his trunks and pants - the latter he found to be a bit snug - he made to put on his dress shirt when he encountered a problem - it was a tight fit. It wasn't as if it was an entire size too small, but just about - such was the problem with having an inordinately tall and stocky body. He ran into similar issues with the vest and he could barely get his arms through the sleaves of the jacket.

Wolf was used to wearing a skin tight suit (underneath plate armor), but this was material that didn't have much give to it; because of this, he found himself having to make some concessions with the uniform. The shirt was really constricting so he left the top four buttons undone - practically all the way down to his vest. The vest was a pullover so he wasn't stressing too much there. However, he was entirely unable to close the jacket as (he assumed) was proper, so he left it open.

As for the tie, he had no clue how to tie one of those, so he chucked into his locker. Thinking a moment, the Spartan reached in and unclipped his combat knife's sheath (and knife itself) from where it was magnetically attached to his MJOLNIR's chestplate and worked his pant's belt through the unused loop in the sheath's design to affix it to his right side. He then isolated his left thigh piece among the stack of gear, opened it and retrieved then pocketed his Scroll.

Nodding to himself, he shut his locker door and proceeded to leave the locker room.

He found his movement uncomfortably less fluid, clad in this textile ensemble as he was. He dared not make his stride as long as he usually would or use too wide of movements of his arms, lest he rip the uniform - modesty wasn't the reason for his caution, but (in Wolf's mind) he already was misrepresenting his status as a student by altering his attire as he had, so he thought it best not to do anything else that would be seen as further thumbing his nose at what was expected of him.

Again, it was lost on Six that some level of individuality would be accepted and that he wasn't the only one forgoing a tie or leaving his jacket open, but such was the discipline he had been instilled with.

Another thing, Six thought as he exited back out into the Training Hall among a throng of departing boys, was that his field of vision was disconsertingly clear and lacking telltale information; his lessened height wasn't too much of a problem, having only lost two inches with the MJOLNIR's booted greaves, but - more importantly - the HUD he'd come to rely and count on was absent. Because of this, the unarmored Spartan was even more on alert with his visual sweeps and paying attention to sounds in his personal space.

It should be said that what Wolf considered his personal space - especially outside of his armor - was a bit larger a bubble than most other people.

In any case, as he searched out his comrades in one of his more frequent scans of some of the milling about students who were chatting among friends, he caught more than a few looks directed his way. Of those whose looks could be construed as staring, were some of the girls of his class. He noted an unfamiliar gleam in a few of their eyes. The Spartan wrote it off as a mixture of confusion and a lack of recognition and he put it out of mind as he moved to pass them by.

Unbeknownst to him, he was only partially correct.

As he was about to leave the Training Hall in the belief the other members of Team PRSN had gone ahead, he was suddenly waylaid by the voice of one of the very teammates he was looking for.

"Spartan?"

Turning on heel to face away from the entrance to the Hall, the so named youth turned around to face the not-as-red-and-gold, uniform clad Pyrrha Nikos.

"I almost didn't recognize you." she said as she closed the gap in distance between them. She looked a bit sheepish a moment, "I mean, if not for your height and hair."

The Spartan raised a brow the barest of fractions. He surmized that was about right; this was the first - and likely to be the only - time he was uniform clad.

"Have you seen the others?" he inquired. Noble Six wanted to get to the venue. He was all about being on time, or better yet, early; all the better to recon the area the photos would take place and - most importantly - 'summon' his locker so he'd have eyes on it. He was starting to get paranoid.

Well, more paranoid.

"No. Well, Nora was one of the first girls done getting dressed and she ran right out of the locker room a bit before me. You didn't see Ren?"

As he was about to answer to the negative, Six was cut off by another familiar voice.

"Bossman! Red! Wait up!"

Noble Six turned to look back into the Hall to see the rapidly closing forms of Nora and Ren, the latter of whom was practically being dragged along by the rambunctous orangette from the entrance to the boy's locker room.

"I didn't see you in there, Bossman! I thought it would take you longer to get outta that metal suit of yours!" the implaccable hammer wielder declared.

"You... went into the boy's locker room?" Pyrrha asked disbelievingly.

"Of course! How else could I get Ren to get done changing in time?" she replied, patting Ren on the head. "He's so slow. He'd take forever!"

To this, Ren just sighed.

"But don't worry Ren," she continued, turning to the pink fringed youth. "I'll always have your back!"

"Right." Ren said, noncommittally, before looking to Pyrrha then the Spartan. "So, we ready to go?"

With a silent nod from Six and a "Yup." from Pyrrha, Team PRSN departed the Training Hall.

Or tried to, anyway.

They didn't get five steps before they were once again halted.

"Wait up, you guys!"

The energetic voice of one Yang Xiao Long washed over them as the group turned as one to face the approaching members of Team RWBY.

"Geez, Nora!" the blonde started, "You were out of the dressing room like someone lit a fire under you."

"Well, I had to make sure Ren would be done changing sometime this century. Someone has to be the responsible one." the so-named girl replied with a nod, puffing out her chest.

"Nora, before we split off to get changed, you said you wanted to swing by the food court and check if they had pancakes before the photo shoot." Ren said knowingly.

"Well, pancakes are the fuel of the responsible, Ren." Nora argued, "We all have to make sacrifices."

Ren sighed.

"Now, let's go!" she chirped as she began dragging Ren once more, heading out of the Training Hall at a fast clip.

Those remaining could only stare after the departing duo for a moment. The Spartan had to wonder if this obvious addiction to the fluffy food would inhibit Nora out in the field and affect unit cohesion.

"Well, that happened." Ruby stated before turning to Six then Pyrrha. "You guys want to walk with us?"

"Sure." Pyrrha replied and Six nodded.

As the group of six exited the Hall in the direction of the amphitheater, they fell into a row arranged such that their acronym would be WBRYPS. The Spartan decided to observe their interaction a bit, to get a feel for their dynamics so he watched the five out of the corner of his eye.

Ruby spoke up again with a grin.

"I'm so glad I got to come here. There are so many things I wouldn't have thought that people would have made into weapons! Some are kind of obvious and unimaginative, like that first guy with the gun-sword."

At this, Weiss's eyebrow twitched.

"But then there was his opponent! I mean, yoyos as a weapon? Who'da thought! And did you see how that one girl used that sash? It was all like 'WHOOSH!' and 'SNAP!' and that guy was all bug-eyed and leaping out of the way and then-"

"Here she goes again..." Weiss muttered while rolling her eyes, but was ignored as Ruby plowed on, gesticulating as she did so.

"- it got him by the leg and he was all "WHOAAA!" and he got slammed into the ground! Then the cloth just slithered right back up her arm like a snake! It was awesome!"

"I believe that was her Semblance at work." The still unnamed black haired girl put her two cents in.

"Really?" Ruby wondered aloud. "Hmmm... I wonder if a Semblance like that would make doing laundry actually fun?"

Ruby seemed to ponder that thought before shrugging and grinning again.

"Well, that girl with the axe-guns, she was pretty cool, too. I really thought she was going to win there, near the end!"

"That _was_ a pretty close match." Pyrrha pitched in with a nod.

There was a brief moment of silence as the group passed under the large archway that spanned over the path connecting the outer and inner portions of the campus.

"I wish I had gotten called up." Ruby said with a sigh.

"Patience, Ruby." her sister replied as she ruffled her hair. "There's always next time."

"You're only being all cool and calm because you got a chance." the usually red-and-black girl protested, fixing her hair as she did.

"Yup!" Yang replied before looking over to her left, past Pyrrha, at Wolf.

"And you there, big guy, you really know how to throw a punch." the blonde said with a grin of her own.

The Spartan cocked a brow slightly. He was just going to observe their interactions, but having been drawn into things, he felt compelled to participate.

"Not as well as you, apparently. Though I recall striking you five times to your two, all it took for you was two." he said as he briefly replayed the bout in his head; the first blow that would've ended it when he activated his Armor Lock and the second that did end the match flashing by as if in fast-forward.

"Tell you what, the next time we have a go of it, maybe I'll teach you how to hit properly. You know, like a girl." she replied with a wink as the other girls giggled a bit.

Despite himself, Wolf found his lips twitch slightly in a small smile.

"Hmm... now that you bring that up..." Ruby began, tapping her finger on her chin, "Right at the end of your match with Yang, both of your Auras were depleted, but you were still standing up like you weren't even feeling it."

The Spartan's mask slid back in place as Ruby pondered aloud. Pyrrha seemed to notice the shift as she raised a brow, but the others carried on.

"I'll admit, I was winded." _from her punch compressing my chestplate_ , Six added mentally. "I've been told I'm too stubborn to know when to quit." _that's what they made us to be, after all._

"Stubbornness or no, people go down - at least for a few seconds - when their Aura is depleted." Weiss interjected, "You just stood there." her eyes narrowed slightly.

"I'm _really_ stubborn."

The little snow fairy huffed and removed herself from the conversation once again as the group finally arrived at the amphitheater (Main Hall).

A small, wooden double tiered stand had been set up outside where - presumably - the students would be gathered for the shot.

As the rest of the five proceeded to head into the crowd of students loitering about near the stand, Six hung back a bit.

Noticing his disappearance, two of the girls - Pyrrha and Yang - turned back to see what the hold up was as the Spartan began fiddling with his Scroll.

"Spartan?" the redhead spoke.

Yang looked like she was about say something as well until the whooshing and thudding accompanied a rocket propelled locker as it impacted the ground several feet away from Wolf, kicking up a tiny cloud of dirt.

Unsurprisingly, many of the students - who had been chatting amongst themselves - were now looking at the source of the sudden disturbance.

Six, however, tuned them all out as he pocketed his Scroll and tilted his head ever-so-slightly in thought. _So, that's how it's 'summonable'. RPL would make for a more accurate name._

"What is the meaning of this?" a middle aged man stepped away from the camera he had been setting up opposite the throng of students and toward the Spartan.

Finally looking away from the on-demand storage compartment, the Spartan regarded his addresser. Lanky build, medium height, chin length greasy black hair and a rather snooty expression cast from his hook nosed face.

"Part of an arrangement he has with the Headmaster, Mr. Slate."

Wolf was spared having to having to explain his actions by the appearance of one Glynda Goodwitch, who'd come out of the amphitheater no doubt to check on the source of the disturbance.

The so-named man scowled and walked back over to the camera he had been fiddling with.

The instructor made stern eye contact with the Spartan before directing her gaze to the gawping assemblage of students.

"The photo will be taken shortly. Find your teammates and gather near the risers."

Following her instructions, Six walked away from his locker and joined Pyrrha next to the stands.

The redhead met his eyes before looking around. "I don't see Nora or-"

"REN! We're gonna be la-a-a-ate!"

"Oh, there they are."

The exuberant hammer-wielder came running from the direction of the main building, followed by a stressed out looking Ren.

Sliding along the grass to a stop next to Pyrrha, Nora beamed.

"What'd I miss?"

The Spartan cocked a brow, noting her breath smelt of maple syrup.

"Not much, you got here just in time." Pyrrha replied with a smile.

The pink fringed boy finally caught up to his three comrades, huffing and leaning forward with his hands on his knees.

"C'mon, Ren! Suck it up!" Nora chirped, slapping Ren on the back and causing him to nearly tip over and cough a few times before levelling a glare at the orangette.

A glare she totally ignored in favor of glancing at the lone weapons locker sitting on the lawn about a yard from the risers.

"Someone get changed in public?" she gestured to the metallic octogon.

Pyrrha looked to the Spartan briefly before meeting Nora's eyes once more.

"No, it was called here as part of an arrangement between the Headmaster and Spartan."

The pancake-fiend turned her bubbly gaze on the youth in question.

"An arrangement, Bossman?"

"An arrangement." Six replied evenly.

"Okay!"

"Attention, students..." the photographer - Mr. Slate, apparently - had stepped away from his rather dated looking camera as he addressed the gathered huntsmen and huntresses-in-training, a Scroll in hand.

All eyes were then on him as he looked down his nose at the handheld device.

"... arrange yourself by teams as I call them out, in the order your name falls according to its acronym."

The man looked up from his Scroll momentarily before returning his attention to it, speaking in a slight drawl that was strangely a near whisper, yet clearly heard by all.

"Teams CRME (Chrome), RWBY (Ruby) and CRDL (Cardinal) on the first row..."

The so-named teams stepped onto the lower level of the riser in the order they were called before the greasy-haired man continued.

"... and on the second, Teams BLUD (Blood), PRSN (Persian) and HAZY (Hazy)."

Wolf and co. took their place on the second tier directly behind Team RWBY and arranged themselves as instructed. Slate's dark brown eyes crept over the gathered students, then he folded and pocketed his Scroll before stepping back behind the clunky looking camera as Glynda looked on from beside him.

Silently, he held his left hand up with all five fingers raised, before curling them back one at a time into a fist.

"Think happy thoughts..." the man said in a monotone that contrasted with his statement as he reached the two count.

Six's eyes were on the lens of the camera, so he didn't see the others around him smiling brightly. He also didn't know what thinking about crushing a squidhead's skull in his bare hands had to do with taking a picture, but it did bring a small and tight, toothless grin to his lips as the flash went off.

As the Spartan blinked the spots away, Ms. Goodwitch spoke up.

"Alright everyone. You have the rest of the day to yourselves." she looked over the students - some of whom were departing the stage at her words. "If you intend to leave campus, come see me in my office to receive clearance signatures after lunch. In any case, you are to behave responsibly. You are dismissed."

As the blonde professor stalked off and the hook-nosed photographer continued to tinker with his equipment, the remaining assembled teams on the stand climbed off.

"You heard her, Ren," Nora licked her lips, "we must remain responsible. To do that, we'll need to fuel up!"

"Didn't you just eat?" Yang asked with a smile, walking up with the rest of Team RWBY.

"There's always room for pancakes." the orangette replied in an all-too-serious tone.

"Isn't that the old Gel-O* motto?" the bow-wearing girl asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Only if it's pancake flavored." Nora said with a nod and returning grin.

There was a sudden collective shudder shared by all but the stoic Spartan and the flapjack obsessed girl at the thought of such a 'treat'.

"So," Ruby spoke up, obviously trying to move things away from the aforementioned culinary abomination, "we going to be heading to the cafeteria then?"

Both Ren and the unnamed ravenette shrugged.

Weiss seemed slightly irritated about something as she gave her nonverbal assent.

"I don't know about pancakes, but I am starving after that match." Yang revealed.

"I was getting a bit hungry, myself." Pyrrha put in.

"What about you, big guy?" the blonde directed at Wolf.

"I'm afraid I have another engagement to see to." Six replied.

"No way! Again?" the golden haired girl deflated slightly.

"Where are you headed?" Pyrrha inquired with a tilt of the head.

"To retrieve my lost item." the Spartan revealed, stepping away from the group.

"Oh... so it's part of your arrangement with the Headmaster?" the redhead questioned.

"It is."

"Lost item?" the scythe-wielder broke in with a tilt to her head.

"Something I was separated from on my way here to Vale."

"So it's out in the Grimmlands, then?" Yang scratched her chin as the Spartan gave a nod, "Would some extra sets of eyes help?"

"I would be willing to go along as well." Pyrrha added.

Wolf considered the offers for a moment before dismissing them - the Pod was classified, if not more so, than his armor; who he revealed its existance to would need to be carefully scrutinized. While he didn't get any bad vibes from Yang or Pyrrha, he still didn't know - and therefore trust - them enough to allow them into his confidence to that extent.

"What I'll be heading out to retrieve is something of a personal nature. I appreciate the offers, but this is something I must do alone," seeing the somewhat downtrodden expressions on their faces, he felt oddly compelled to add, "but thank you, anyway."

"Oh well, can't blame a girl for trying." Yang said, perking back up.

"Do you have any idea how long you'll be?" Ren asked.

"I cannot be certain, so it's best I set out immediately while there's still hours of daylight yet." he replied, looking up briefly and noting the sun before returning his gaze to the group, "In any case, I'll see you later."

With that and a few farewells and wishes of good luck, Wolf headed over to his locker. Looking at it in judgement a moment he then withdrew his Scroll and navigating the menus to the 'Locker Requisition' tab. After inputting his passcode, he swiped through the menus. Aside from the 'To my location' option were some preset coordinates - one of which being the Training Hall, which he selected before heading in the designated direction himself.

The rockets in the locker spooled up before flaring to life behind him as the 'RPL' took off and zoomed past him overhead to his destination.

Under the noise generated from the lifting-off locker, the Spartan didn't hear a few words exchanged in his wake.

"Poo."

"What's wrong, Yang?" Ruby asked innocently as the group turned away from the amphitheater and began their walk to the main building.

"I was hoping he'd change." the blonde replied, kicking an invisible stone along the path.

"His mind?" Pyrrha inquired.

"His clothes." she said with a saucy grin.

"Yannnng!" her younger sister swatted her on the back.

* * *

His armor re-equipped, Six departed the Training Hall and headed down the path leading away from the academy proper. His trek took him down a stone walkway which was bracketed by symmetrically placed trees whose branches were swaying in the gusting wind.

His destination had already been in sight from the entrance of the Training Hall he departed; the cliffside air docks, and the Bullheads seated thereupon. As he drew closer he saw a man smoking a cigarrette who looked to be in his mid twenties in full pilot gear, save a helmet - which was on the ground at his feet - leaning against the open bay doors on one such craft.

The man seemed to take notice of the approaching seven footer and rocked himself away from the vessel before bending at the knee to fetch his helmet.

"Spartan Wolf?" the short blonde-haired man spoke gruffly as he took the butt from his mouth and dropped it onto the ground, grinding it with his heel.

The Spartan nodded and the man continued as he set the helmet on his head, "Colin Brickmeyer. I'll be your pilot." he finished adjusting the straps, "I have the flight plan set if you're all ready to head out."

The pilot's response was another nod of the head.

"Alright, hop in." Colin spoke as he followed his own direction - climbing into the passenger bay of the craft before making for the cockpit.

Wolf followed suite as the doors began shutting and the engines started keying up.

Over the growing whine of the turbines, Brickmeyer's voice was heard through speakers in the passenger compartment, "We're looking at about an hour's flight! Take a seat and get comfy!"

Heeding the man's words, Wolf took a seat near one of the port side windows - the seat groaning under his weight.

The Spartan watched as the ground began to rapidly shrink away from view as the Bullhead lifted off, rotated in its ascent to face away from Beacon, then sped off.

As the city of Vale passed by underneath in a blur, Wolf began to have a better idea of its size; from his point on the wall surrounding it several days ago, he believed it to be a large city, but a bird's eye view really hammered home just how sizeable it was.

Though the sound of the engines were different from that of a Pelican's, Six found himself being lulled into a familiar state of drowsiness - a rather common occurance for frequent fliers like himself, he tended to fall into a near dozing state prior to an aerial insertion.

Six was pulled from his lethargic state some forty five minutes later as the speakers once more boomed out the pilot's voice.

"We're about five minutes out!"

Getting his head in the game, Wolf turned to look out the window once more. A nearly unbroken carpet of tree tops flowed past beneath his gaze as he rose to his feet, his hand resting on the bulkhead near the viewport.

The engine's began to ease up and the barest hint of g-forces he had been feeling dialed back.

As the Bullhead slowed to a hover, Brickmeyer once again spoke into the passenger's compartment, "Alright, we're above the coordinates now but I can't put down here!"

True enough, out of the window he saw an uneven break in the canopies below, as if something had crashed through them from above.

"I saw a good sized clearing half a klick north of here!" the pilot went on, "We're out in the Grimmlands here so I won't set down until you've gotten what you came here for! Until then, I'll fly a holding pattern 'round it!"

With that, the doors nearest the Spartan parted with sound of machinery and hydraulics as the Bullhead lowered just enough to almost be scraping its underbelly on the jetwash swept treetops beneath it.

"Out you go!"

Six went to the edge of the now open bay door and looked down - he didn't see the telltale greyish white of the Pod from his position, but he remembered that it had come in at an angle.

His feet cleared the ramp as he entered Armor Lock before gravity took him. Limbs were smashed aside as he dropped like a rock through the foliage, slamming into the ground with a dull thud half a full second later.

Releasing himself from the protective stance in a small burst of energy, he he rose to his feet, his practised hands withdrawing his DMR from his back as he did so. The sound of the Bullhead's engines beginning to drain away as it put some distance from its titanium-clad cargo.

Surrounded by freshly broken detritus from his most recent crash landing, his head swiveled to take in his environment before he froze, staring dead ahead of himself.

Around him was an uneven arrangement of browns and deep grays of the bark of elms and willows; that was what he expected to see.

The unmistakable whitish, metalic sheen of the angular Pod was also present, several meters before him; that was what he hoped to see, but also half-expected.

The Pod, absent a Spartan-sized hole in the side of the alien device and looking entirely undamaged, however, he did not.

* * *

 **XX**

 ***- Gel-O is obviously a name for a certain gelatin product whose actual name I won't use because I don't want to be sued.**

EDIT 2/20/2018 - Please reference my bio regarding my stories as updates are pending.

 **Stay awesome, readers!**


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